#turned into a force ghost and he never went dark side crazy but just decided to lightly terrorize some rando

[jedie]

darth vectivus should’ve been anakin’s mentor

[bestiesenpai]

Inamorata - Sukuna

You have no idea how much I like this idea lol ya know the meme ‘i got a boyfriend, yeah he kills people he’s crazy’ this is exactly what went through my head with this. Femme reader, I went for a...Sukuna is his own person and not attached to Itadori kind of thing? Like just a stand-alone demon. I had probably way too much fun writing this and would be down to write more for this concept

Content warnings: killing/murder/homicide choose your preferred noun, a little yandere?, size difference and Sukuna is in his four armed form, uhmm there’s a knife(main use to cut open readers palm in the beginning) and also licking blood from said wound, violence/gore at the end

Apparently there was a demon on the loose. From what you’d read on online forums and heard through the whispers of older people on the train, there was a foreboding presence terrorizing the city, preying on the weak and helpless and hoping to take over the world.

There were blurry photos and horrible sketches of what the creature supposedly looked like and the form it took, but none of them seemed to match up. The tattoos on the face and body were always off, the amount of muscle and the stature of the creature were all different depending on who you went to.

Which is why you decided, against all better judgement, to go looking for him. All the stories you’d heard about the demon, the kind of creature it was centuries ago in its prime, had intrigued you. With the mystique and terror surrounding this demon, you’d be a fool not to try and get a peek for yourself.

At first you’d tried a summoning circle, clearing a large space in your bedroom and drawing intricate patterns on the floor in hopes of his arrival. That method quickly turned futile as no demon ever came - but now you probably had a few ghosts watching you sleep at night.

The second method was to try and make a pact with the devil himself, slicing open your palm and dripping blood onto the pages of old scriptures. Attempting to sell your soul had worked even less than the first method and all you had to show for it was a bandage around your hand for two weeks.

“I’ll definitely see him now.” You mumbled to yourself, walking straight to where the demon was seen most: the red light district. Walking past bright neon signs and nearly naked women in shop windows, you took a peek into every alleyway you came across.

“Hey pretty lady, what’re you looking for?” A rough, scratchy voice sounded behind you as you walked past the umpteenth alleyway of the night.

“What do you think?” Not looking over your shoulder, you kept walking. The voice, while sounding absolutely disgusting, didn’t belong to a demon and therefore not worth your time.

“I think you’re looking for trouble.” Curling his fingers around your arm, the man you were trying to ignore snatched you back, making you stumble and fall into his chest. The nasty scent of body odor and cigarettes was wafting off the man, making you worry that his stench would cling to you for days.

“Not the kind you’re talking about.” Pushing away from him, you furiously wiped off your clothes. Looking this man in the face irritated you, he was wasting his time and you knew exactly what his intentions were.

“Don’t play so hard to get!” Forcing a less than charming smile on his face, the man made the move to grab you again.

“Don’t touch me!” Slapping his hands away, you took generous steps back from him. “You’re getting in the way of my search.”

“Search?” Quirking a brow at you, the man took a moment to think before his brows rose in surprise. “You’re looking for Sukuna, aren’t you?”

“That’s his name?” You’d never heard his name before, only seeing some people refer to him as a four armed creature from hell.

“Yup, and I’ve seen him a couple times.” Crossing his arms over his chest, the man smirked triumphantly. “You could say he and I have a kind of friendly relationship.”

“Do you now?” Your eyes trailed up from the man to the dark alleyway behind him where two glowing red eyes emerged.

“Oh yeah, Sukuna’s a great guy! Even offered to give me a position in his little army.” The more he spoke the brighter the eyes got and the fuzzy outline of a gigantic body was starting to take shape.

“His little army?” Slowly taking steps back as the figure came forward, you barely had time to react before the man was snatched up by two giant hands and yanked backwards. Lifting him into the air, it wasn’t long before a mouth with gleaming sharp teeth opened up and swallowed him whole.

As the eyes drew their attention back to you, a nervous laugh left your chest that you couldn’t force to stop. Every step you took back was now accompanied by a step forward from the creature until it fully left the alleyway and you saw exactly what you were dealing with.

Right in front of you, in full form and glory, was the demon you’d been searching for. The scrawling black tattoos along his entire body, the four arms, pink hair, second set of eyes and his impossibly muscular physique - all of it was exactly like you’d been hoping for.

“Hello, pretty little thing.” His voice boomed despite being relatively quiet, a slight echo to the deep timbre. It was almost melodic in a way, somehow soothing your racing heart just slightly.

“S-sukuna?” You squeaked out, back meeting the brick wall of a building.

“That would be me.” Chuckling as he stopped a few feet from you, Sukuna crossed his secondary arms and looked down upon you. The sheer height and width of his body easily dwarfed yours, your head only barely reaching his ribcage.

Your eyes couldn’t stay in one place as you looked at Sukuna. There was too much to take in and you could feel yourself quickly becoming overwhelmed trying to commit every detail to memory.

“You’re…” Licking your lips nervously, you could only meet his eyes for a moment before settling on the mark on his forehead. “You’re wearing womens clothes.” Tied around his waist and hanging off his legs was indeed a womens kimono, a surprising pristine white shade.

“That’s what you decide to say at our first meeting?” An echoing laugh bellowed from him and Sukuna shook his head, running one hand through his hair.

“I-I’m sorry it’s just...they never mentioned it online.” It felt a little silly to be explaining yourself to him when at any moment Sukuna could eat you like he did that man and you would have no way of stopping him.

“Little thing, I have a question for you.” Fixing you with a suddenly sharp stare, Sukuna lowered his brow and bent down, placing two arms above your head and two at your side, trapping you in against the wall with no possible outs.

“Yes?” Pinching your eyes closed, you held your breath as you waited for the inevitable bite of his teeth around.

“Are you scared?” Sukuna whispered, his breath fanning out over the top of your head.

“Yes.” It would be a lie to say no and you had nothing to lose by telling the truth. Sukuna’s eyes bore into you, the weight of his stare physically making your back bow.

“What did you think of me eating that man just now? Was that terrifying for you?”

“No.” Sukuna took a pause at your answer and although you couldn’t see it, his brow furrowed for a fraction of a second.

“What did you feel then? Surely you must have thought it was horrible.”

“N-not really.” Slowly cracking one eye open, you looked up at Sukuna, almost breaking your neck from having to stare directly above you. “I was actually quite happy you did that. He was getting on my nerves.”

The barking laugh that left Sukuna’s mouth made you flinch and throw your hands in the air. It was so loud it seemed to vibrate your entire body and a few windows on the building behind you shook from the force.

“You’re telling me you liked me killing that guy?” Grabbing you by the collar of your shirt, Sukuna held you up in the air, eye level to him. You nodded, pitifully kicking your legs out to try and get back to solid ground. “Aren’t you a messed up little thing?” Still laughing, Sukuna took a proper once over of your body. “Pretty, but messed up.”

“P-please let me go!” You whimpered, hands desperately clutching Sukuna’s to try and not fall out of your clothes and onto the ground.

“What’s wrong? Don’t like how I hold you?” Shaking you for good effect, Sukuna smirked wildly at your scared little squeaks. “Tell me your name.”

“It’s (Y/N)!” Shouting into the air, you felt relief flood into you as Sukuna finally lowered you back to the ground and his hands released you.

“(Y/N)?” Sounding it out on his tongue, Sukuna shrugged to himself. “I like ‘little thing’ better.”

“I’m only little compared to you.” Fixing your clothes, you tried to regain your breath and stop your body from shaking so violently.

“So, what’s a creature like you doing out so late at night here? It’s not safe for a human like you to roam around these parts.”

“I was looking for you.”

“Me? You were looking for me?” Sukuna snorted, waving his hand dismissively at you. “A human like you looking for me? I’ve really seen it all.”

“It’s true!” Pulling out your phone, you quickly showed him all the data you’d compiled on him. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere, Sukuna! I did a summoning circle, I’ve looked in hundreds of online forums - I even tried to make a deal with the devil!” Showing him the mark that was still healing on your palm, the fear that was in your body was slowly trickling out and being replaced with- hope? Excitement? It was hard to say, but as Sukuna grasped your hand between two fingers and looked at your palm, it would be wrong to say it was a negative emotion you felt.

“You really did all that for me?” His voice was much softer now but it still sounded like he was mocking you. Smoothing the pad of one finger across your palm, he felt the ridges of your palm and the wound.

“I did. I find you really fascinating and I- I just wanted to learn more about you.” You faltered when he looked at you, a fierce heat overtaking your cheeks at admitting out loud that you’d been looking for a demon because you found him interesting.

“Are you perhaps interested in me?” A smirk tugged one side of Sukuna’s lip up and he chuckled when your expression only grew more flustered. “Oh little thing, you’re more messed up than I thought.”

“Will you tell me more about yourself? Please?” The words tumbled out of your mouth desperately as you let Sukuna stretch out your arm and grasp your hand more firmly. He didn’t answer you or even acknowledge that you’d spoken, instead grazing the tip of one long sharp nail along the line of the cut.

“I find myself liking you more and more, why is that?” Sukuna’s tone sounded like he was addressing himself as he spoke aloud, turning your hand every which way as he kept scraping his nail against your palm. “Were you my lover in the past, back when I reigned as the ruler of this whole land?”

Racking your brain to try and remember any information on Sukuna potentially having a lover, you were ripped back to reality when Sukuna dug his nail into your skin, reopening the cut and making blood flow freely.

“Ow!” You couldn’t yank your arm out of his grasp and you watched in mild horror as Sukuna lowered himself to your hand, letting his tongue hang out of his mouth and drag across your skin. His tongue quickly became coated in dark red blood, his saliva starting to mingle with your blood.

“You taste so familiar, you must have been mine.” Lapping up your blood now, Sukuna didn’t stop until he could tell you were starting to get weak from blood loss. The lower half of his face was now covered in red, smeared across his skin like paint.

“Sukuna, that’s gross.” The mumble slipped from your delirious mind, making him laugh as he waved a hand over the cut and made it go away. Slipping your hand from his grasp it was like there had never been a mark there in the first place.

“A human telling me what’s gross?” Licking his face clean, Sukuna grinned down at you. The longer he looked at you the longer memories of a past you returned to his mind. The irresistible draw he felt to come to you tonight had been the same one that called to him centuries ago, making you the center of his otherwise cruel and empty world.

Placing two hands on the wall behind you, Sukuna leaned over you once more, this time grasping your chin and turning your face up to him. The saliva that had mixed with your blood had also given you new memories of the past as well, and as you looked at Sukuna you remembered all the things the two of you had done together.

“So, my pet, what shall we do first?”

Sukuna ended up carrying you home, having you tucked inside his kimono as he leaped on rooftops across the city. Opening your bedroom window, Sukuna shoved his body through, having to make himself slightly smaller to fit inside the house.

“Are you uh, hungry?” Standing awkwardly in the middle of your bedroom as Sukuna sat on your bed, you weren’t quite sure what to do now.

“I could eat.” Laying fully back on your bed, it creaked and groaned as Sukuna rested his weight on it. The thought of offering to take him to the kitchen came and went quickly in your head; just getting him into your room was a hard enough task.

Fixing him and yourself a quick meal, as soon as you were done eating Sukuna picked you up and rested you on his abdomen. Even after shrinking himself down your legs were still stretched as wide as possible in hopes of wrapping around his waist.

“As the memories of you return, I realize how much I’ve missed you, my pretty little thing.” Petting down your back, Sukuna looked at you fondly. Propped up on two of his arms, he could stare directly at your tiny body sitting atop him.

“What kind of memories do you have?” So far, the only thing you could seem to recall were memories of a more sexual nature. One’s of you and Sukuna wrapped up in each other's arms, both of his cocks stuffed inside you as you begged to cum.

“I remember giving you the world, whatever you wanted was yours for the taking.” The look in Sukunas eyes was surprisingly soft and you could feel the love coming out from him.

“Whatever I wanted?” Repeating the words, your mouth hung open slightly at all the possible things you could get.

“The world may exist to serve me, but I exist to serve you.” Fully sitting up, Sukuna held you against him as he leaned down, lips grazing your forehead. “What do you want, (Y/N)? I can get you anything in the world, I can do anything in the world.”

“Kill for me.” The whisper that left your lips was almost too quiet for even yourself to hear. But Sukuna nodded, having heard you perfectly. Your words made his body thrum with excitement and his nerves were on edge.

“Kill for you?” He repeated, kissing you on the forehead. The fingers that held you closely dug into your sides and if Sukuna wasn’t careful he could crush you completely.

“You love me, don’t you?” There was just the slightest hint of worry in your voice. What if you were overestimating your power over Sukuna? He could say no or even kill you himself.

“You have no idea what the things my love for you will do.”

Although it pained him to do so, Sukuna left you once the sun began to rise. He had other things to attend to, temples that worshipped him as a god to visit. Promising to see you once dusk began to settle over the sky, Sukuna leapt from your window and into the horizon.

“You came back.” Even though he swore up and down he’d come back, it still shocked you to see him back on your bed once it hit a certain time of night.

“Of course I did.” Sukuna almost seemed hurt you would question him. Holding out a hand, as soon as you grasped one of his fingers he pulled you to him and nestled your body into his side. “Did you do what I asked?”

“The list is in my pocket.” Before leaving, Sukuna had told you to make a list of all the people you wanted him to kill for you. The list had started out short, just a few people that had hurt you that you couldn’t let go of, and then it grew to others, politicians and corrupt people in the media.

“Quite impressive, little thing.” Reading over the list, Sukuna stood up. “Shall we go then?”

“Go whe-” As Sukuna threw open your bedroom window you were met with a strong gust of wind. “Sukuna, where are we going?” You asked him over the wind in your ears. Putting his upper arms into the sleeves of his kimono, he made sure you were nestled safely inside.

“We’re going to take care of the first person on your list.” Wrapping an arm around you, Sukuna jumped out of the window. Though this wasn’t your first time in this position, you hadn’t been fully cognizant when Sukuna took you home last night. Now, with a head clear and no lack of blood to distract you, you could see the lights of the city clearly as they whipped past you.

“It’s beautiful.” Carefully leaning forward, you gazed at the downtown area with all the flashing lights and swerving cars.

“If you say so.” Patting your hip, Sukuna pulled you back, resting your weight fully on his arm and clothes. He wouldn’t admit it, and despite knowing he would catch you in a millisecond, Sukuna didn’t want you to fall out and fall to the ground.

Coming upon the first persons house, he settled you on the ground outside. You were in a tightly knit residential area standing directly under a streetlight, with rows of houses that all looked similar. In a flash, Sukuna had broken into the house and grabbed the person you were after.

“This them?” With a tight grip on their ankle, Sukuna shook them side to side.

“Mhmm.” You didn’t need to look to know he’d gotten the right person, just the feeling you had around them was enough to confirm it.

“W-what’s going on here?!” They screamed, blood pooling in their head the longer they hung upside down.

“Don’t speak.” Sukuna barked, shaking them once again. “You don’t speak to her, or at all.” The person screamed again, a high pitched sound that quickly got shut off as Sukuna swung their body and smacked them against the ground. “I thought I told you to be quiet.”

For a moment you thought they’d died from how hard Sukuna hit them against the ground, but a small whimper and breathless gasps sounded from where their face was crushed against the pavement.

“Do you know why I’m here?” You whispered, standing over their motionless body. Rolling over onto their back, they shook their head and started to stammer. “If you can’t answer my question I don’t want you to make a sound.” Pressing your foot onto their throat, you flinched when their hands came up to try and claw you away.

“Don’t touch her.” Instantly pinning their arms down, Sukuna glowered. “How would you like me to do it?”

“Let me think.” Staring down into their glassy eyes, a million options went through your mind. Sukuna’s power was limitless, there was nothing he couldn’t do. If you asked him to throw their body into outer space, he would do it in a heartbeat. “Rip them limb from limb. You can eat them if you’d like.”

“As you wish.” A sick grin curled Sukuna’s lip and he drug their body across the ground until they were directly underneath him.

“(Y/N) wait! W-wait please!” Their shrill cries fell on deaf ears, and the sound of the first limb being torn off their body was something you could get used to. “Oh- oh my god, my leg!”

“God I wish you’d shut up.” You kept your eyes on the person's face, refusing to look at where blood squirted generously from their now missing extremity.

“Allow me.” With the swipe of one claw Sukuna gouged out their throat. Hot, bright red blood spilled out onto the pavement, pooling and almost making it to where you stood. Throwing one leg into his mouth, Sukuna used a non-bloody hand to lift you up and place you onto a brick wall.

“Thank you.” Giving him a gentle smile, you now had a front row seat to Sukuna ripping apart this person's body and slowly devouring them. There was a mess of blood coating Sukuna’s skin, far more blood than when he had drunk yours.

As you watched Sukuna eat this person, a sense of satisfaction washed over you. It felt good to get justice in your own way for how this person wronged you. After being told to let it go, try and move and let time heal the wound, you could finally get closure the way you wanted.

“All done?” You asked once the last piece of their body was consumed. Standing up to his full height, Sukuna still looked down at you. The blood on his skin began to sizzle off, evaporating into the air and leaving the pungent smile of iron behind.

“Have I made you happy?” He responded, cupping your face and lightly squishing your cheeks. Smiling proudly, a warm flush washed over your face the longer you and Sukuna looked at each other.

“Yes, very.” Nuzzling into his palm and kissing it, you let out a breathless laugh as Sukuna did the same.

“I’m happy to please you.” Kissing you on the top of the head, Sukuna pulled out the list and crossed out the first name. “Shall we go to the others now?”

[dancingamongstdust]

Creepypasta Scenarios - First Meeting (Part 3)

I’ve opened requests now, if anybody is interested. Here’s the post:

Requests

Lost Silver

As stupid as it sounds, the game didn’t scare you.

It had started as a joke, something passed around your friend group after it had been discovered. The cartridge was just a janky version of a Pokémon game that was apparently spooky and so, everybody had taken turns messing around with it. They all said creepy things started happening but nothing too bad.

When it was your turn, you had been fully expecting something out of a horror movie. Instead, you had gotten a game that just had audio cut offs and weird notes warning you to stay out. It wasn’t all together scary.

You mentioned this to the next person you gave the game to in your friend group and they had laughed, saying it would probably ring true for them also.

But for some reason, your ally didn’t manifest.

Less than two days later, they practically threw the game at the rest of you and ran away sprouting things about curses. After that, the appeal of playing it kind of went away.

Nobody wanted to buy it and apparently throwing it out wasn’t a suggestion. So you ended up getting it.

Curiosity soon got the better of you and you booted up the game again, really sure that it would do something absolutely crazy but it never did. It ran like it always had with only that one file being completed.

So you deleted the file.

And nothing happened.

The next day, when you booted up the game, the file had simply returned as though you hadn’t deleted it in the first place. A similar thing occurred the next time. And the next.

Eventually you gave up and just started your own game. There, everything ran like it was meant to and you were beginning to think that your friends had all been imagining stuff. Maybe their paranoid got to them or something like that?

But eventually, the nightmares started. And they were bad.

You couldn’t remember exactly what happened during them. They were a swirling mess of games and glitches, horrible things spelled out in letters and blood covering everything. You would always wake up right when they seemed to be coming to a pivotal point. You’d find yourself dragged into a graveyard and then you’d wake up screaming

It was awful. You hardly got any sleep during them and they seemed to haunt you every night, keeping you up until the early hours of the morning.

But the worst only came when you didn’t wake up.

When you were dragged to the grave and looked down to see the ellipsis where the name should be. A punch to the gut that reminded you of what the game file was called. A confirmation of what was causing this dream.

You stared at it for ages before your eyes drifted up and you met his gaze. He was covered in blood, it leaked from every orifice and limb. It stained his dirty clothing even worse.

While you were staring, the world seemed to distort even though he didn’t. The game world melted away and your bedroom slowly reappeared.

It wasn’t until you saw car headlights move past your window – casting awful shadows across the room – that you realised you were no longer dreaming. He wasn’t a figment of your imagination.

The temperature in the room plummeted and you began to slowly reach for a weapon of some kind. He turned to look at what you were watching. His head tilted to the side and a glitch raced across his body before he vanished into thin air. Flicking on the lights didn’t show him hiding or cowering.

Perhaps your friends weren’t crazy after all.

Masky

“You know, if we had been a little more patient, none of this would have happened,” your sibling lectured. “We could be relaxing inside the car without having to worry about a bloody flash flood coming down from the sky.”

You shoved their back, forcing them to stumble a little as they went through the door. “Chances are the river’s going to burst its banks anyway. We would have been stuck in traffic for hours because the bridge is blocked off.”

“At least we would have been dry,” they muttered, running their fingers through their hair. “And not trapped inside an abandoned building.”

You rolled your eyes and made your way over the rubble to settle down on a camping chair. “Don’t even start. This place has been a hangout for my friends and I for ages. There’s never been a single problem bigger than a few spiders.”

“Till a landlord shows up,” they scoffed.

“Then we’ll move to the forest,” you joked. “I’m sure there’s a good bear cave we can use.”

“I’m going to be an only child,” they said, rolling their eyes. Still, they made their way over and sat. “How long do you think we have until the storm dies down?”

You relaxed back into the chair and smiled up at the asbestos-filled ceiling. “From the sound of it, a while.”

It wouldn’t have been the first time you had taken a nap in the building. You were scared of giant cockroaches coming to eat you once. You had gotten used to it since then but this time when you woke up, you were uneasy.

Glancing around, nothing was out of the ordinary. Your sibling was snoring in the chair next to you and outside the rain was pounding the roof.

You sat upright. Sometimes was definitely wrong.

Pulling your phone from your pocket, you got up from the chair and began walking as quietly as you could through the house. It had always been tiny and practically void of furniture, but the few rooms provided ample hiding spots.

Nothing but rubble was in most of the rooms but, in what you presumed had once been a bathroom, you found a person.

He had his back to you but when you pushed the door open to peer in, he spun around, his hand flying to his side. He was wearing a white mask, dark features etched onto it, and an orange jacket. A dark stain ran up the right side of it, emanating from under his hand. The oddness of his clothing made you immediately back away from the door, finger twitching on your cell phone in case you needed to call for help.

The two of you stared at each other in silence.

You were lost about what to say or do. The stain on his jacket was spreading and the more you stared at it, the more you became convinced it was blood. “Are you okay?” you finally managed to ask.

It took him a while to respond but then he nodded. The mask was unnerving you. You didn’t like not being able to see a person’s facial expressions.

“I don’t mean to pry or anything, but it really looks like you’re bleeding,” you said. “And quite badly. I can call for an ambulance or something although…” you turned your attention to the window behind his head. “I’m not sure they’ll be able to get anywhere with this weather.”

He stepped backward. “I’m fine,” he said, so soft you barely caught it. “I thought this place was abandoned.”

“It normally is,” you answered. “But we had to avoid the storm. I’m guessing that’s why you’re here also?”

“Yes,” he responded.

You waited or him to say something more, but all you got was silence. He had moved further away and now he had his back against the window. Part of you wanted to turn around and go back to your sibling but you were unsure about turning your back on the strange man.

The mask made you scared he could stab you or something.

Somebody calling your name made you turn your head on instinct. Your sibling must have woken up and realised you were missing.

Quickly, you turned back to the man, but he had disappeared. Rain spat through the now open window.

Nurse Ann

Everybody always warned you about exploring old buildings. They would yell about how many things could injure or kill you. Stray animals, drug addicts, old equipment, and all that. You had heard just about every warning imaginable. Ghosts were pretty commonly mentioned also.

But killer nurse was a new one.

“Come on, just give me a little more information,” you nagged. “I’m going there whether you’re with me or not so you may as well just tell me what you’ve heard.”

Your friend (and partner in crime for most ventures) groaned. “It’s not much. They just say that she guards the place and if you get too close, she’ll run you off with a chainsaw. Some people have died from injuries they got while there. Let’s just give this one a miss, alright?”

But you were not in agreement at all.

“Maybe she’s cute though,” you teased.

They didn’t find that funny and you didn’t push them to come with you. So later that evening, you snuck in by yourself.

The hospital was old with crumbling walls and smashed windows. It was hidden from the public by means of a tall barbed-wire fence and a substantial distance of open garden. Nothing too extreme for you and definitely worth the potential items you’d find inside. When hospitals went under, they often left tons of awesome stuff just scattered around.

You’d never sold anything you found in your abandoned building dives. They were more collectables than anything else but they meant quite a bit to you.

There weren’t any signs of crazy nurses as you approached the place. Nobody came running at you with a chainsaw at least. You didn’t even find evidence of squatters who could sometimes pose some danger.

After deciding it was safe enough, you lifted yourself through one of the windows and began to explore.

Honestly, it was creepy. Everything was way too old to be worth collecting and there were too many unidentifiable stains for your liking. The water damage was bad. It looked like the ceiling was there for aesthetics only and several rooms creaked too much for you to comfortably cross them.

And that was even without the awkward feeling of being watched.

You told yourself that it was just superstition but you couldn’t shake it. Every few seconds saw you looking over your shoulder in anticipation. It distracted you from keeping your eye on the path in front of you and the loud crack reached your ears too late.

The floor gave out and you fell through. Your shoulder hit some kind of metal object as you landed in the room below. Painful shocks ripped through your body and your head knocked against the floor with a heavy thud.

Stars danced in front of your vision and you raised your hand to the top of your head. Blood coated your hand when you lowered it to look.

Shit.

Shakily, you tried to pull yourself up but quickly found that your arm was too sore. Instead, you pulled your phone from your pocket and sent off the emergency text to your friend.

The world faded to black not long after that.

When you woke up next, you were in your room with a bandage wrapped around your head. You had felt like absolute crap but still gotten up to thank them for the save. They had nodded and warned you to be more careful, happy that you had been outside the hospital so they didn’t have to look for too long.

Before you could even think about how you had crawled there, they asked how you had managed to do your own stitches so nicely.

Puppeteer

Your camera was on 10% battery.

Grumbling, you shoved it into your bag and cursed your past self for forgetting to put it on charge. In order to get the best sunrise photos, you had found yourself waking up earlier and earlier. It was tiring but it was worth it… most of the time.

You just hoped that at least one of your pictures was usable but you could only check on them once you got home.

The streetlight above your head flickered as you walked past. It wasn’t unusual but when you were the only person awake for miles around, it was awfully creepy.

Putting your hands into your jacket pockets, you continued strolling back home. The neighborhood had never been dangerous and despite living in the area for your entire life, no incidents made you want to stop walking around at night.

Deciding that you wanted to take a precautionary shot, you headed for your neighbour’s house first. They had an arch covered in jasmine flowers that made for some perfectly safe photos and they never minded your presence.

After making your way there and getting a few photos, you were treated to the fright of your life when their began howling and barking. It wasn’t aimed at you but you didn’t like the noise regardless.

As you rounded the corner of the house, planning on racing back to your own home, you encountered the dog’s target.

A man – cloaked in the darkness and barely illuminated by the streetlight – opening one of the windows with ease. Irritated by the dog, he didn’t notice you until your finger twitched around the shutter of your camera. There was a flash.

His head snapped up and you screamed.

The man’s complexation was literally grey. He wasn’t just ill, he was the colour of storm clouds. Golden eyes with no pupils glared at you and froze you in place. Whatever he was, this man was the furthest thing from human.

Your scream woke your neighbors. The sound of movement began coming from inside the house.

He abandoned the window, stalking towards you. The air tingled like it was expecting a lightning storm. Golden tendrils grew from his fingertips and shot towards you. They had you pinned in an instant.

You struggled against them and opened your mouth to scream again but they wrapped around your head, forcing your jaw shut.

This was how you died… tears spilled down your cheeks at the realization. You were going to be an unsolved murder. All you hoped was you got a good picture of him.

Your neighbor’s front door opened and great dane let out an ear-splitting bark as he raced toward you.

The man, or creature, or monster, or whatever he was, released you to face the dog. He let it approach before vanishing into a cloud of smoke as its jaws reached him.

“What was that?” the timid voice brought you back into reality.

“It was trying to get into your house,” you said. “I screamed when I saw it and then it grabbed me.” Your voice changed to a whimper as reality hit you. You nearly died.

The small child of the house came over to hug your leg. “I’m sure Puppet didn’t mean to scare you,” she said. “He always comes to visit but he doesn’t like it when people make noise. You shouldn’t scream when you see him again.”

You made eye-contact with the parents and they wore expressions of horror at their daughter’s words.

“Puppet?” you asked in a small voice.

She nodded rapidly. “He says he stops by because he likes watching people. I think that he’s watching us all right now! But he can hide in the shadows too well.”

“I’m going to go and call the police,” somebody said.

You weren’t all too focused. The feeling of being watched grew heavier and you clutched tightly at the camera in your hands.

Slenderman

You couldn’t tell if they were being serious. You hoped that they were joking. They weren’t genuinely going to…

“No,” you stated.

The two younger children both turned to look at you simultaneously. Guilt flashed across their faces as though they weren’t aware you were listening. It was as though you were asked to babysit them because you didn’t pay attention. These two should have realised that by now.

“Do you think all the stories are true?” the boy asked. “I think that they are. One of my friends said she saw a huge dog in the forest and then it ran away after eating a whole cow!”

“No way!” his twin sister shouted. “Dogs don’t eat cows, so it can’t be true!”

You put on your best intimidating expression and crossed your arms. “I don’t care if they’re true or not. There is absolutely no chance that either of you are going to go running off into the woods with bears, wolves and all kinds of other creatures.”

The two children glanced at each other and bolted for the tree line before you could grab their shirts.

Thankfully your legs were longer even if they had a head start and you managed to catch up pretty quickly. Once you caught the boy and picked him up with ease, the girl dashed behind a tree.

“Can we please just leave?” you asked nicely. “If we forget about the forest adventure thing, I promise I won’t tell your parents and I’ll get you ice cream.”

The boy was trying his hardest to get out of your hold. You were starting to think babysitting didn’t pay enough.

“I don’t want ice cream,” the girl said. “I want to go and find a unicorn.”

She darted off into the forest and you let out a deep groan. Shifting the boy’s weight over your one hip, you started walking after her. If you wanted to give chase via running, you would have to put the kid down and trust him to follow or stay.

It was obvious that wasn’t happening.

It didn’t take you too long to find the girl. Mostly because she had stopped in the middle of a weird grove in the trees. She was just staring off into the dark shadows beyond it.

As you approached her, static popped in your ears. You shook your head in an effort to displace it but the closer you got, the louder it became.

The child in your arms whimpered, clutching his head.

You softly called her name and then it appeared. It was a man-like monster, standing just in the shadows of the trees. Easily over 7ft tall and insanely thin with no facial features. Your heart jumped into your throat and your stomach tied itself into a knot.

Without taking your eyes off it, you reached out a hand and fumbled around until you grabbed the girl’s shirt.

The static was getting louder and louder. You tried to shut it out as you started moving backwards, tugging the child along after you. She wasn’t willing to move her legs. She was entranced but whether by fear or magic, you couldn’t tell.

And then it was much closer.

You stumbled in fright, letting go of the girl’s shirt and landing on your ass. The boy fell on top of you but scrambled away and hide in the bushes within the blink of an eye. You sent a silent prayer to him to run back home to the other adults.

Once again, the creature was stationary but now the static was growing to such a volume that you could imagine your ears were starting to bleed.

You reached out for the girl again slowly, but something wrapped around your leg and yanked you into the air.

It took almost a full second for you to realise that the screaming ringing in your ears was you. Whatever was holding you tightened and whipped your body through the air. It was like your leg was being ripped away.

Then you were falling.

It was some feat of luck that you managed to twist your body, so you didn’t land on your head. You lay there for a while before something poking your back made you unbury your face.

The twins were staring at you with wide eyes and the monster was nowhere in sight.

“What was –“ you couldn’t finish.

“Slenderman,” they said in perfect sync.

Splendorman

Another stop…

You couldn’t help yourself. Every time you walked past one of the posters fluttering lightly in the wind you had to stop and stare at it.

A few days ago, your dog, your beautiful and sweet puppy, had disappeared from your house without a trace. The missing posters were depressing reminders that he wasn’t home. It hadn’t taken long for your mind to spiral into the negative thoughts about how close the road was.

Damn your coworkers. One of the had suggested the road in the first place and while they hadn’t intended anything malicious, it was definitely not helping your fears.

The dog had been with you through thick and through thin… if it was dead, you may as well have lost a close family member.

Hanging your head, you dragged your eyes away from the poster and kept walking.

People bumped into you, but it was your fault. You refused to look up in case another poster distracted you. Getting home before the sun set was your only focus now.

You had tried going out and searching in all the places where your dog once spent time to no avail. Always willing to try again, you chose to drop off your bags and head out later that evening when you ran out of distractions.

As you walked through the gates in front of your house, a gust of air gently messed up your hair. A gust of wind suspiciously similar to a laugh.

Your logical mind told you it came from the street, but something made you stop in your tracks.

The walls around your property towered. There’s no possibility that somebody could be in your garden. To try and scale one of the walls, they would have been in full view of your neighbours who would have undoubtedly called the cops.

“You’re sad,” the wind whispered before you could brush off your suspicion.

Spinning wildly, you searched around for the source. You backed up until your entrance gate was behind you. You could run down to the main street with ease if you could just get your fumbling fingers to unlock things.

“Don’t run,” the wind said, this time blowing from a separate direction. “I promise I’m not going to hurt you. I just wanted to know why you’re upset.”

Is this what going insane was? Nobody around and the wind was talking to you. You had always feared losing your mind and now it was happening.

“I’m real,” the wind said. “I’m hiding because I’ll scare you if you see me.”

“I’m going mad,” you muttered, shaking your head. “If this is somebody pulling a prank on me I swear….”

The wind quietened for a bit and then it picked up again, ruffling your hair as it spoke. “If I show myself, it’ll prove that you’re not going crazy, but I don’t want to make it worse by frightening you… you’re so sad already.”

“I lost my best friend and people have been telling me he’s most likely dead,” you hissed. “Obviously I’m not in the best mood. Now I’m losing my fucking mind and talking to air.”

The atmosphere around you dropped, like it does moments before lightning strikes. You glanced at the sky in confusion. As expected, no clouds in sight.

You lowered your gaze and a 7ft tall creature covered in bright polka dots stood in front of your house.

Once you screamed, it disappeared.

“I’m sorry,” the wind said. “I knew I would scare you, but I had hoped it would show you that I’m not imaginary. I’m just trying to help.”

The gate finally opened behind you and you stumbled backwards through it, your heart sitting in your throat. A monster was in your house and it was probably going to kill you. Spinning on your heel, you took off full speed back towards the main street.

You were fully expecting it to give chase now that you hadn’t fallen for its claims of harmlessness but it didn’t.

Instead you reached the main road and only got a few strange looks because of how much you were shaking. Nothing followed you.

The wind picked up once more. “I’ll try and help,” it promised.

People walking around you should have heard it as well but none of them so much as blinked.

Ticci Toby

While you had been told that a noise limit for the forest existed, your laughter refused to cooperate. It rang through the trees and probably chased off all the animals nearby. A picnic out in a national forest was a fantastic way to reconcile with nature and to scare it all away.

With eleven people in your picnic party, chances of any creatures coming into view were already slim though so you didn’t worry too much.

“We didn’t bring nearly enough fruit,” you muttered as you dug in the basket.

“Excuse you, I brought a whole watermelon but you ate it,” somebody answered your grumble. “If you want fruit, it is spring. Go and forage for some berries.”

You snorted. “Yeah, right. I’m going to go out by myself in the middle of the one season where bears are irritable as fuck. I know I sometimes act a little impulsively, but I don’t exactly have a wish to die at the claws of a grumpy teddy.”

Your friend leaned towards you. “Is that so? What if we split into teams and made a bet? Loser has to take a dip in the river.”

“A bet?” you asked. “I’m interested.”

She grinned and snapped her fingers. “Okay, there are eleven people so I’m feeling groups of two with one impartial party as a judge. We should be fine if we make enough noise and stick within close vicinity to each other. See how many berries we can gather?”

Tipping out the picnic basket’s contents, you smirked and pushed it into her chest. “Oh, I hope you brought a swimming costume.”

Everybody teamed up with ease and grabbed one of the many containers lying on the blanket. You headed out with your partner and gave a wink to the other teams. All you needed was to find one good bush first and you had it won.

“We should split up,” your partner said. “Cover more ground.”

You nodded. “We meet up back here once we’ve found a good bush,” you agreed. “And we shout if we find any animals.”

Obviously, your plans hadn’t involved losing your footing almost directly after the two of you split.

Tumbling down the small hill, you tried your hardest to protect yourself from the bushes as you went through them. At some point, you lost your basket and by the time you had finally rolled to a stop, you had no idea where it was.

Grumbling, you stood up and started searching until something dark caught your eye. Thinking it was your basket, you made your way over.

The clearing you walked into housed a scene you could never have imagined.

A dead bear lay slumped against a tree, its fur being what had caught your eye earlier. A hatchet buried in its neck was spilling blood onto the floor around it. All that hardly compared to the man leaning against a tree.

“Oh my god!” you exclaimed. “Are you alright?”

His head immediately snapped up, allowing you to see that he was wearing a mouth guard and a pair of goggles. Blood seeped from between his fingers where they clutched against his chest, but he hardly noticed. A hatchet was hanging from his belt.

Suddenly, you were wishing you had kept your mouth shut.

He stared at you blankly for a while, an occasional twitch minorly affecting his body. Reaching up, he took off his mouthguard. “I can’t feel any pain,” he said. “So, I’m fine. Why are y-you out here? The hiking trail is far.” He struggled with one of the words, seeming to hiccup a little on it.

“I was searching for berries and I slipped down a hill,” you answered. “Are you sure you’re okay? It looks like you got into a fight with a bear. Your shirt is all bloody.”

“I did fight a bear,” he laughed, gesturing to it. “I won.”

Your eyes grew wider. “I think you should get to a hospital. What’s your name? I can call somebody for you and we’ll get you medical attention.”

“Toby,” he said. “That’s my name. What’s yours?”

You gave him your full name and pulled out your phone. “My friends are close by,” you said. “Don’t worry, they’ll be here to help soon.”

When you raised your attention from your phone, he had disappeared and so had the hatchet from the bear’s neck.

Trenderman

Work was hard. It made your feet ache, it made your back click and crack, and it felt like the problems would never end.

Would you give up working in the fashion industry? Not a chance.

Your boss walked past where you were calming down an irate customer over the phone and dropped the keys to the front of the building in front of you. “Close up for me,” she mouthed as she left.

Nodding, you moved them to the side of the desk where they couldn’t be lost.

Once you had finished calming the customer, you glanced around to check how many people were left in the room. Three still working and one in the process of leaving. You were technically going into overtime at this point, but you didn’t mind.

There was a reason you were promoted so quickly.

“We need to set up cameras!” one of the floor managers snapped, storming into the office. She marched straight over to your desk and glowered at you. “I put this request in a week ago.”

Scrolling through the documents, you quickly opened the file. “I see but it looks like it’s been bumped due to a shipment malfunction, I’ll flag it. What’s the problem?”

“Customers or members of staff are moving items around and throwing things out without warning. We need to catch the culprits!” she snapped.

“What has been thrown out?” you asked. “I’ll add it into the information.”

The woman started listing quicker than you could type. “I’ve found crocs, toeless thigh-high boots, bellbottomed jeans, coloured faux fur jackets, luminous lipstick, w-necks, and jeggings all in vast numbers in the trash can. Every time I put them out on shelves, they disappear again.”

It took everything in you not to snort. “I’ll mark this vital.”

She stalked off and you went back to inputting the shipping requirements. You were meant to be organising what was coming in for the latest line and subtly omitting anything that wouldn’t sell well enough.

Slowly but surely, your co-workers trickled out of the office after finishing off their daily tasks. You kept going, trying to make sure you could have a longer break the next day.

Finally, when the sun had already set, you relented and started getting ready to go home.

You sung as you finished packing up for the day. Being the last one in the building (thus having to lock up) made you a little more confident as you danced around getting everything together. You slung your bag over your shoulder and happily trotted over to the door.

It made you so happy that your boss entrusted you to be the last one around. She was so hyper-protective of company secrets that you were proud of yourself for winning her over.

Your talent with people was something you attributed to dealing with painful customers.

As you passed through the store-part of the business you stopped to rearrange a mannequin. Every morning when you came in, you always noticed something had been changed with this specific one. You figured you could move something small and see if it would be a good place to set up a hidden camera.

Though you weren’t expecting it to suddenly grab your arm.

“You may be one of the few workers here with good taste, but I advise you don’t try and change my outfit,” it said. It didn’t have a mouth, but the words rang in your head, nevertheless.

You screamed and pulled away, tearing your arm from its grip. Shelves were knocked over and clothing was sent flying as you tried to escape.

The mannequin just watched you as you fumbled madly for the door.

The glass rattled in the frame from how hard you slammed it shut behind you. You sped off down the street, moving faster than you ever had before. You collapsed on your lawn by the time you reached the house, taking deep breaths.

Nothing had followed you. Everything was okay.

With shaking fingers, you dialed your boss’ number and told her you would be taking a sick day. There wasn’t a chance in hell you were going anywhere near there again.

Not to mention the mess you made… you were definitely getting fired.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Misread Details: Robert

CW: Dehumanizing language, BBU blanket warning, serial killer/death talk, descriptions of death/abduction/murder, blood, whumper death, some real vague implied noncon references, creepy whumper, sadistic whumper

Part One: Nanda | Part Two: Brute | Part Three: Robert

The Dark Discovery in Robert Weber’s Basement: Box Boy Killer, Part 3

r/LetsTalkTrueCrime

•Posted by u/oshaycanyousee

3 days ago

After Part One, where we learned about the mysterious, but possibly entirely natural, death of Nathaniel “Nanda” Benson, and Part Two, where we saw Henry “Brute” Hanlon’s double life lead to his untimely gruesome murder, you see the single thread that connects these two men who otherwise never met, interacted, or even shared a single person in common… a nameless Box Boy, present at the death of Nanda even if he isn’t responsible for it, and the proven killer of Brute.

It’s my theory that this Box Boy may have accidentally killed his legal owner, Nanda, and then picked up a taste for the act and moved on to taking shelter with those he turns into his victims.

With Brute, he simply didn’t know the man had a wife and children and entire other life, and may have assumed no one would come looking for him or recognize his death. With our third individual, Robert Weber, it seems like our Box Boy Serial Killer got in over his head.

I give you… the Accidental Vigilante death of Robert Weber.

You decide if our unknown killer is simply the unluckiest guy in the world or a killer who even now may be somewhere living with - and earning the trust of - his next victim.

-

One bright and sunny day in the quaint, old-fashioned California town of Rancher’s Rest, Robert Weber was late for work.

Weber worked in a vehicle repair business owned by lifelong “RR” resident Randy Niles, who had known Weber since his childhood and had been his boss since Weber was eighteen years old and fresh out of high school.

Niles, who is now nearly seventy-five and still spends his days in the shop with an Australian Shepherd named Cody and a blind pit bull named Sue keeping him company everywhere he goes, stated that Weber had no living family he knew of beyond his sister in Vermont, and he was just about the closest thing Weber had to a relative just from having known him so long.

“He didn’t have too much to do with his sister,” Randy said in an interview with Unsolved Mysteries. (You can see the interview on the new Netflix reboot of the show! It’s a really good episode, definitely recommend. It’s how I got into this case in the first place.) “Or nobody, really. Just us at work, the guys at the bar, that kinda thing. He was quiet, kept to himself really. You’d never just strike up a chat around town or anything. But he got on just fine with the boys here in the shop. He was a bit of an egghead, too, always going on about this thing or that he’d seen on the news. Little… odd. Little bit off, you might say. But really, who isn’t? In any case, you know, I’d known him since he was a little boy, so he was just Bobby Weber to me.”

Then, of course, one day Robert Weber didn’t show up to work. Randy Niles immediately felt that something was very wrong.

“When nine, nine-thirty came and went and he wasn’t there,” Niles said, “I knew someone needed to go check on him. Bobby showed up for work right on time or ten minutes early, rain or shine, for twenty years. My first thought was maybe he’d had an accident at home, or some kind of, you know, health thing. Almost never called in sick, took one vacation a year, that kinda thing. So I drove right on over there. This would’ve been, oh, probably ten or ten-fifteen when I got to the house. Had my dogs with me, and they never did like Bobby much, but as soon as I opened my door and got out of my truck they just lost their damn minds. Barking, growling, Cody’s hackles were up like you wouldn’t believe. I know it sounds damn crazy, but I’m sure those dogs could smell that evil had been done in that house.”

On camera, Niles goes quiet, here, his gaze slipping away from the interviewer as he scratches at the side of his nose. When he looks back, the hint of good humor that seems to be an eternal part of his expression is gone.

“I didn’t know what Bobby had been up to all this time. None of us knew. I’ve known Bobby Weber his whole life, and I… I had no idea.”

Randy Niles was unable to convince his two dogs to exit the truck, and eventually rolled down the windows to give them some air and a way out if they chose (he is insistent on this point in the Unsolved Mysteries episode - “don’t you dare say I left my dogs locked up in a truck on a sunny day, I sure didn’t - Cody even knows how to pull a door handle if it’s the right kind”) and got out to knock on Robert Weber’s front door.

No one answered.

Niles knocked again. Still no response.

The front door was locked, but Niles was able to locate an unlocked back door into the garage, where he found Weber’s car neatly parked and nothing out of place. However, once he used an interior door in the garage to enter Weber’s home, what he found was so shocking he still struggles to describe it today.

“The, uh. The first thing I saw,” Niles says in the Unsolved Mysteries episode, wiping at his mouth with a handkerchief, “was a cage. Big old cage in the living room. Like a kennel for a big dog, Great Dane or something, except… except, you know, kennels’re usually mostly wire, not that heavy. You can fold ‘em up, put ‘em away. This was… geez. This was pure metal. Bunch of blankets all piled at the bottom, too. Here’s the-... you know, my mind just didn’t want to even make the thought, but I just, I looked at it and-”

In the episode, Niles has to take another moment, here. His eyes grow wet, and his voice is hoarse when he speaks again. “People cage. Bobby had a damn man-sized cage in his living room. That’s when my stomach just fell out. Even then, though, I couldn’t-... I just thought, oh, well, what people get up to in their own homes is their business. But still, I just. I just decided, find Bobby, figure the rest out later. So I kept walking around looking for him.”

Randy Niles continued to call out, hoping to hear Weber’s response, but received none… at first. The radio in the kitchen was playing a local public radio station (“Bobby always hated the country western and classic rock we played at work, he was a big news man, big into classical, jazz, you know.”)

Niles noticed, he says, that the cage next to the couch had a wooden top, as though it were meant to act as a side table, and on that table was a small woven basket. Inside the basket appeared to be several State IDs and Driver’s licenses. Niles took note of this but his first assumption was maybe that Robert Weber had stolen some IDs or something.

Which was technically true, just… not quite the way he thought.

The kitchen, hallway, and all three bedrooms were equally empty of life. Every room was clean, everything neatly in place. Empty bottles of Jameson whiskey, Weber’s favorite brand, were lined up like décor along the mantel, and one half-full bottle was next to two clean, empty glasses on the kitchen table.

Even the beds were perfectly made.

The only thing missing was any sign of Robert Weber himself.

The question of Weber’s whereabouts was answered when Randy Niles heard a sound coming from the open door to Weber’s unfinished dirt basement.

“Like a ghost,” Niles said in his interview. “Just this low moaning sound. Hardly even thought of it as human, you know. But I just-... I called out, ‘Bobby? That you?’ and the moaning got a little louder, like whoever it was was tryin’ to answer. I could still hear my girls in the truck just going nuts, probably worried about me knowing what they maybe could smell even out there. I figured… I figured I’d best call the cops and get them out here. Seemed like a plan. So I picked up my phone and dialed, and then I headed down those basement steps.”

What Randy Niles discovered in Robert Weber’s basement was a dying man, battered and stabbed eight times, lying in a half-dug grave.

Robert Weber had been beaten with the very shovel that had done the digging. The shovel lay off to the side, caked in dirt and blood. Police would find some of Robert Weber’s hair on it, too. Then, the individual who had beaten him had gone back upstairs - blood smears were found on the railing to the stairs - and taken a kitchen knife out of the knife block on the countertop. A bloody fingerprint was found on the side of the knife block. They had then returned to the basement where Weber was stabbed, almost entirely through the stomach and chest, twenty-six times, until the cheap knife simply broke from the force.

Randy Niles admitted in his interview that he became very ill at this time. “From the shock,” He elaborated. “I haven’t been able to smell much since I was in a car wreck when I was young, so I didn’t smell what-... what my girls prob’ly smelled from outside, and what the cops smelled. To me, it was just… just a little off, is all. It was the sight of it that got to me, not the smell. The sight of the-... the hand.”

Behind Robert Weber’s body, the hand of another person was sticking up out of the loose dirt, as though someone was trying to dig their way out.

“I remember… I remember her nail polish was pink. That’s when I got sick, actually, was when I saw that hand with the painted nails. That’s when it just hit me all at once what Bobby had done.”

Randy Niles went back up the stairs and waited for the cops to arrive. Rancher’s Rest is a small town where everybody knows just about everybody else, and Niles was on a first-name basis with every single police officer he spoke to that day and in the days after. He would learn alongside the investigation that Robert Weber was not simply the quiet, intellectual car mechanic he had always seemed.

Instead, Robert Weber was a serial killer whose potential final victim had managed a miraculous, deadly escape.

Robert Weber never answered a single question about his own murder - he never fully regained consciousness and died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. His injuries were simply too severe. His autopsy showed that the cause of death was a stab wound that went deep into his chest and that he was first stabbed only after the beating with the shovel had taken place. Like Brute, most of his stab wounds were applied post-mortem in a rage rather than as part of the killing itself.

Medical examiners also found scratches on Weber’s face and arms, indicating that he had attempted to defend himself - or someone else had attempted to defend themself from him.

So why was Robert Weber killed, and why was there already a body in his basement? Investigators would piece together the story over the following days and weeks from a crime scene that only seemed to become darker and more baffling as time went on.

Excavating the basement was originally thought to be something that would be brief, but after the first body was removed, another one was found beneath it. Then another off to the side of that. And another, although this was simply bones.

Every time the forensics team thought they’d found the last human bone, they dug a little deeper or in a new spot and found more.

Eventually, the remains of twenty-two individuals would be removed from the basement of Robert Weber’s home, not including Weber himself. The oldest located victim was identified as Melinda Traxson, an Iowa woman reported missing by her family after she ran away in March of 1996… more than two decades before Robert Weber didn’t come to work one day.

Investigators are still working to match up every body with a missing persons’ case. For nearly all of them, the cause of death could not be easily ascertained due to the deterioration of the remains, but some showed signs of skull fractures. Identified individuals so far include:

Melinda Traxson, 19, from Iowa, ran away from home in 1996.

Billie Mortimer, 21, disappeared from a day out with friends at Lake Tahoe one year later in the summer of 1997. Her friends went to get lunch from the car after a swim and when they returned, she was gone.

Matthew Ranger, 22, went missing during a road trip to Yellowstone National Park in 1997 (only five months after Billie). His car was found abandoned by the side of the road with a flat tire.

Karl Janssen, 24, a tourist from the Netherlands who was also visiting Yellowstone, disappeared a month after Matthew. Last seen by an employee of the park who witnessed him speaking with another young man and getting into the man’s car. The employee said that the two seemed to be friendly with one another and did not seem like strangers.

Hannah Pointer, 26. She was reported missing in 1999 by her mother after failing to return home from work in Reno, Nevada. This disappearance occurred more than a year after Karl Janssen’s. Investigators would later discover that during this time period, Robert Weber dated a young woman from his hometown and he may not have wanted to risk her finding out what he was doing.

Isaac Jackson, 26, a Rancher’s Rest resident who disappeared after going out to a local bar to see his friend’s band play in 2000. His car was found submerged in a small pond two years later. This is the first time Weber apparently killed anyone close to home. He was actually briefly suspected in Jackson’s death, as he was the last person noted to see Jackson alive, but was cleared of suspicion at the time.

Dustin Swill, 21, who was driving from Colorado to California to visit his sister who had moved to Berras to work for WRU in 2001. He was last seen in a gas station near Yellowstone, where employees noted he spoke to a man who was smoking outside, who gave him a cigarette. When Swill left, employees saw the man put out his cigarette and leave shortly after. They did not find this unusual or noteworthy at the time.

Maria Vargas, 25, a Rancher’s Rest resident who was reported missing in 2002. Her family is intensely private and have shared few details about her, but it is known that her boyfriend at the time suspected Weber, who had attempted to convince her to leave the boyfriend for him and had apparently threatened her. He remained a suspect but there was never enough evidence to charge him.

Jennifer Striker, 28, from who never arrived for an appointment with a realtor in 2011. The long pause between Maria Vargas’s murder and Jennifer’s appeared to be due to Weber keeping a man named Finn Schneider within his home for more than a year after abducting him, as well as Weber serving five years in prison for a violent assault on a man he believed had sold him a defective vehicle. (Schneider was no longer in the home before the assault and prison time.)

Riley Nievelt, 25, was staying at the Big Meadow Campground with six friends during a weeklong vacation in 2012. She vanished while on a trip to purchase supplies. Her cell phone was found on the ground in the parking lot of the Food Lion in Rancher’s Rest, a short and easy drive away. At this time, with multiple individuals vanishing after being seen in Rancher’s Rest or being residents of the town, police begin to suspect and start hunting for a possible serial killer.

Alexander Peterson, 29, was a long-haul driver who vanished while working. He was last seen at a rest stop in 2014 on the California/Nevada state line, and would likely have passed right through Rancher’s Rest on his journey. He was reported missing by his ex-wife in South Dakota when he did not return as scheduled for a custodial visit.

The most recent victim, and owner of the hand that Randy Niles saw sticking up out of the dirt, was Yolanda Pierce, 26. She was a Rancher’s Rest resident with a troubled relationship with her husband, who had stormed out after an argument and was never seen again. She is believed to have died the same day as Robert Weber.

More remains exist but have not yet been identified. If you or anyone you know has a friend or family member who went missing during this time period in or near Rancher’s Rest, Yellowstone National Park, or Death Valley, it may be worth looking into, as those appear to be Robert Weber’s “hunting grounds”.

Disappearances in Yellowstone and Death Valley almost always matched up with Robert taking one of his rare weeklong vacations from work.

When investigators located three large diaries hidden inside a locked box in Weber’s closet, the first two fully filled up and the third nearly two-thirds finished, they found an exhaustively detailed record of Robert Weber’s crimes.

In these records, they discovered Weber’s first three victims were killed within 24 hours of abduction, with the rest being kept alive for longer and longer time periods. It is believed all of them met their end in Robert Weber’s basement.

Diary entries included records of two victims who were not a part of the bodies buried in Weber’s basement, both of whom may still be alive:

Finn Schneider, 19, a German tourist who disappeared in 2003 during a visit to Death Valley. Until Weber’s journals were found, it was believed he had perished in the park and had simply never been found. Robert Weber also visited Death Valley during this time. No one linked the two together. Evidence found in Weber’s home after his death, including the aforementioned diary entries and photographs, shows that Schneider was alive in Weber’s home for nearly sixteen months. It is believed Weber purchased the “human cage” that Randy Niles noticed around this time. The last diary entry that mentions Schneider states that he was “traded” on June 16th, 2005, to an individual only referred to as “Mouse.” What Weber received in exchange is unclear, but he was seen driving a new, custom-painted truck around this time, which he said he bought “from a personal ad” when asked by Niles about it. Schneider has never been found. However, his mother did receive a phone call in 2013 from an individual she believes to be her son, telling her that “Finn” was okay and to stop looking for him.

Our Box Boy, 334235, purchased by Nathaniel Benson years prior, whose whereabouts had been unknown since he murdered Brute Hanlon. Weber believed the Box Boy to be in his early twenties, according to his diary entries, and mentioned that he had picked the Boxie up hitchhiking and had intended to kill him before seeing the barcode on the inside of his left wrist and changing his mind. His diary suggests the Box Boy remained in his possession for roughly a fourteen months prior to Weber’s murder. Police have not released the details of what the Boxie was subjected to during this time, stating only that it is not the public’s interest for this information to be known, and they would like to locate the missing Boxie and interview him about certain details.

Four murders occurred during the time the Boxie was kept by Robert Weber. Weber noted that “the dog helped” with either murder or burial, suggesting that he may have worked as Weber’s accomplice in his terrible crimes.

Is it possible that they bonded over a shared urge to kill? Did the Boxie start a captive and become a companion?

Weber’s diary contained other disturbing facts, as well:

Weber also noted three failed abduction attempts in detail, in 1998, 2004, and 2017. In each he described with incredible precision of memory the appearances and descriptions of each person he failed to capture. He also appeared to do intensive research using their license plates and other information to find out where they lived and who they were. The names of these individuals have been kept quiet for privacy reasons.

Other failed abductions were noted, about one per year, without much detail. Or at least not enough for police officers to know who they were. Nearly all these failures were in one of three locations: Yellowstone National Park, Stanislaus National Forest and nearby campgrounds, and in or near Death Valley.

The last entry in Robert Weber’s diary was penned the day of his death.

NOTE: Weber referred to the Boxie as “the dog” in nearly all his journal entries. His last entry went:

May 6th, 20XX: The dog is pissed about something again. He’s always pissed about something. I think the thing in the basement probably kept him up all night with her caterwauling. He never gets used to the noises they make. God knows I can’t sleep either, at least not well. I’ll handle her tonight, have a drink with the dog after, see if that shuts up his nonsense for a while. Note: missed NPR interview with Senator Carlotta Grant on new leg. about the bb prohibition act. Find that on website later.

Found in Weber’s home, in boxes under his bed, were a series of restraints made of leather, high-quality items that appear to be custom-ordered to specific measurements. These included “gloves” intended to keep someone from being able to claw or scratch in their own defense, five sets of cuffs, a body harness, a leather half-face-mask that police referred to as a “muzzle”, several gags, some of which were deemed to be “designed to cause injury to the inside of the mouth”, and “other assorted items for use in torture and torment”.

You can find some leaked police docs online that go into more detail, but suffice to say they pretty much match the kinds of “toys” found in Nathaniel Benson and Brute Hanlon’s homes, too. And apparently, if you really know where to look, you can find some blurry low-quality photos Weber took, too.

While the items are a bit salacious, they aren’t entirely uncommon in consensual relationships, too, so it’s really not clear if they’re evidence of the Boxie being held against his will or not.

The investigation of the crime scene suggests that at some point after writing his final diary entry, Robert Weber made himself a pizza, which he ate half of and put the rest away in the fridge. His shaving cream and razor were found out on his sink, and Weber’s body was clean-shaven, suggesting he shaved shortly before his death.

He then watched three episodes of Law & Order: SVU. We know this because he texted during this time with his only living relative, the sister in Vermont. Little is known about Weber’s family and childhood, beyond his sister’s recounting of a quiet, strained home life with an overbearing mother and her mention that Robert endured several head injuries as a child and adolescent, including one that hospitalized him for days.

After he finished watching TV, Weber entered the basement and murdered Yolanda Pierce. It is believed he took the Box Boy downstairs with him, either as accomplice or witness. At some point while he was disposing of Yolanda Pierce’s remains, the Boxie became enraged for one reason or another, beat him with a shovel, got the kitchen knife from upstairs and stabbed him to death, and then left the house.

A neighbor remembers hearing odd noises around 3:30 AM and looking out their window to see a shadowy figure walking quickly down the road, but they weren’t able to see well enough to say whether or not the individual matches the description and WRU-provided photos of the Boxie. It does seem reasonable, though, to assume that the neighbor witnessed the Boxie fleeing the scene of the crime.

The Box Boy has never been seen again.

Police are pretty mum about the active investigation into the Box Boy’s whereabouts. I was able to get ahold of one source closely related to a member of the investigative team who said that there’s just not a lot of urgency. “Weber killed nearly two dozen people, just that we know of,” The source said. “The cops are a little bit ‘good riddance to bad rubbish’ about the situation. Unless the Boxie comes back to RR, they’re just inclined to let sleeping dogs lie.”

The sense of “let it be someone else’s problem” would be understandable… if this Box Boy weren’t responsible for one other direct murder, possibly two.

Police believe the Boxie has not left California, and is likely to be continuing to survive by engaging in prostitution or perhaps panhandling or some other hidden way of making money. Unconfirmed sightings have been located in three cities in central California, but all of these are unverified and should be taken with a grain of salt.

It’s also possible he hooked up with a pet liberation movement group, in which case he may be hiding out in a safehouse, protected from the consequences of his actions by the pet lib movement’s understandable insistence on total secrecy and anonymity for the Boxies they take in.

If he’s an innocent victim of circumstance, that’s fair.

If he’s a burgeoning serial killer with three victims under his belt and a taste for inflicting terrible violence on those who take him in… well… anyone who gives him shelter may be next.

Is our Boxie a purposeful killer or just supremely, almost incomprehensibly unlucky? Will he kill again? Was he Robert Weber’s accomplice or his victim?

Will he strike again?

Should there be an audit of WRU’s psychological testing on potential sign-ups to see if, perhaps, a Box Boy-wannabe with an urge to kill slipped through the cracks?

What do you think?

-

@astrobly @finder-of-rings @burtlederp @whump-tr0pes @raigash @eatyourdamnpears @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @boxboysandotherwhump @outofangband @whumptywhumpdump @whumpfigure @thehopelessopus @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @butwhatifyouwrite @newandfiguringitout @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump @oops-its-whump @endless-whump @cubeswhump @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @whumpiary

[knightmareaceblue]

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AO3

Snap. Fwish.

Snap. Fizz.

Snap. Fwish.

Snap. Fizz.

“Mister Price,” Chara, ever polite and practical, turned away from their spot at the head of the otherwise silent group to stare at Rupert, who trailed behind the group, playing with his new powers by creating and extinguishing flames with a snap of his fingers. “While I appreciate that magic is very new to you and very, very cool… could you please STOP THAT?!”

For a moment, Rupert froze, not at all acknowledging the ghost who was now hovering over his shoulder, focusing on the glowing orange flame dancing on the tips of his fingers. Then he dispelled the flame and put his hands in his pockets. “Sorry. Didn’t mean ta bug anyone.”

Despite the fire of fury he’d had in his eyes throughout the entire fight, Rupert’s voice sounded weak and fragile, like a weak candle about to be snuffed out by the winter winds. The look in his eyes was almost broken, and it wasn’t hard to see why.

Then he looked over at Henry, who had slowed his pace to match theirs. “Hey, ya think Dave saw that cool fire stuff I was doing?”

Henry found himself smiling sadly. The constant exposure to Charles’ raw KINDNESS must have had a bigger effect on him than he’d thought, if Rupert Goddamned Price was having this sort of effect on him. “I’m sure-”

“Probably not.” Chara interrupted nonchalantly, floating on their back like they were lounging in the ocean. “If our opponent knew enough about souls to take his soul without killing his body, then its probable that Dave’s soul was kept in a sleeping state to prevent him from fighting back. That means he probably didn’t even know you were there.”

Never had Henry seen a person deflate so quickly. Rupert adjusted the gray cap on his head, quickly muttered an apology, and walked a little faster, pushing past weird Headphones Guy and causing the Toppat leader to sway momentarily before managing to right himself.

“Uh, rude much?” The Headphone Guy called after him. He then turned to his boss. “Why are we bringing these stooges with us again?”

“Somethin’ ‘appened at the Government Base. Something Sven was involved in. Whatever the ‘ell that kid got ‘imself into, we need all the info we can get.” The Leader glared with sunken eyes back at them, and then sneered, his dark red mustache twitching with the force of his scowl. “Even if it means putting up with these assholes.”

With his PATIENCE, Henry could see he had many options before him. But screw those options, because Henry already knew he was done with Chara’s nonsense.

He slowed his pace, grasped at Chara’s semi-solid arm with one hand, and asked in a hissed whisper, “Is he not miserable enough for you or something? Dude just got so upset he literally caught fire. Cut him some slack.”

Chara’s face was distinctly unimpressed. “Weren’t you mad at him for almost killing Charles that one time?”

To this, Henry kind of rolled his eyes. Chara was eloquent, sure, but they were still a child at the end of the day: naive, unable to consider the world outside of the little context they had. They had more context than most children, granted, but they were still very limited. “I was. Then he apologized the next morning, and I was still mad. Then all this crazy nonsense went down, and I decided to forgive him.” The decision had actually been as recent as last night. Henry’s KINDNESS wasn’t much… it paled in comparison to the green glow that Charles put out, but if anyone could empathize with the gnawing guilt that came with failing to protect someone you love, it was definitely the man who’d spent the last few days trying to wake the dead.

“Oi, dickweeds!” The Toppat Leader called from the front of their little pack. “We’re ‘ere.”

‘Here’, as it turned out, was a box-shaped metal building standing just above a lava pit with the word ‘Lab’ printed in large bold letters on the side. “This must be where Doctor Alphys used to live.” Henry mused aloud, then grinned. “I wonder what kind of dirt I can dig up on her.”

“She saved yer life and ya want ta blackmail ‘er?” Rupert gave him kind of a funny look, having been shocked out of his depressed state by Henry’s words.

To that, Henry looped an arm around his shoulder. “Not blackmail. Friendly snooping. It’s the easiest way to get to know a person.” Henry winked playfully at the soldier.“Once, when I was in prison, Dave asked me how to get to know you, and that’s the advice I gave him.”

“Wait, that’s the reason he went through my phone that one time?!” Rupert stared at Henry for a hot minute before apparently deciding he was more exasperated than angry, sighing and pushing Henry away to enter the lab. He called back over his shoulder, “You’re an arse, Stickmin.”

Henry snickered and followed behind him.

The light mood didn’t last too long, however. Once inside, Henry only had a moment to breathe before something sturdy and tight wrapped around both of his arms and hoisted him up. And if the hollering nearby was any indication, Rupert had been caught in the same trap, though not for long. Rupert broke free with an orange glow, and Henry, with his PATIENCE, knew that all it would take to escape the vines was just to twist his body the right way. Hardly graceful, but effective. Both men landed feet first on the floor, prepared to face whatever was in their way. And it was…

A flower.

A single, smiling flower in the center of the room. Grinning up at them with big doe eyes that might have been innocent, had it not just tried to tangle them up in a mess of green vines. Things only got weirder when it started talking to them. “Howdy!” It greeted pleasantly, as if they’d met on a Sunday stroll and not in a dimly lit abandoned lab. “It’s a real treat to have such delicious looking guests! You’re going to make excellent fertilizer-”

That was when the Toppats came through the door. Headphones Guy was grinning like a jackal, and the Leader, leaning a little too heavily against the door frame, sounded quite smug as he called out, “’At’s enough, Flower Boy. ‘Ey’re with us. For now.”

The flower immediately dropped the cheerful facade, staring stupidly at the tallest Toppat for quite some time before literally launching itself up out of the ground and hitting the man in the face, knocking him down to the ground. “You- Right Hand IDIOT! Do you have any idea how freaked out I was?! You started a stupid fight with these government dweebs, then all of the cameras got corrupted and I could see diddly squat, and now your suddenly ‘buddy-buddy’ with the guys who came here to-to arrest you?! Not to mention the weird stuff… with…”

Suddenly its voice trailed off. Its petals drooped like the ears of an angry cat, its eyes widening in shock. Henry followed its gaze, turning around to stare at the open door of the lab.

To stare at Chara, who floated their with a sharp-eyed glare and the kind of dangerous frown that he’d only seen on Mister Price during their Toppat missions.

For a long time, nobody spoke. Henry put together what he knew in this time; he knew this flower was likely Flowey, the reincarnated prince that Frisk had failed to SAVE. That would make it – no, him – the brother of Chara. Chara, who had spoken about Flowey like one spoke about the weeds choking their garden. Whatever tore them apart was currently an unknown, but it must have been pretty serious to invoke this kind of hate. Possibly concerning their deaths.

Henry narrowed his eyes and stepped back to observe.

“C-Chara…” Flowey breathed out, his voice brittle and soft.

“Flower.” Chara returned, their voice curt and bitter.

“But I… you’re dead.”

Chara put on a mock astonished expression, looking over their glowing red body as if just noticing what was wrong with this picture. “By god, you’re right! How have I not noticed?”

The Toppat Leader stood a little straighter, his eyes darting from the ghost to the flower, back and forth. “I take it ya know each other?”

“No.” Chara crossed their arms, their eyes never leaving Flowey. “I’ve seen this abomination from a safe distance, but we’re not acquainted.”

Immediately Flowey put on a face like a kicked puppy.

“Psst, ‘Enry.” At some point Rupert Price had sidled up to his side, drawing Henry’s attention away from the drama before him. “Check it out. See ‘at wall over ‘ere? I think ‘at’s the Toppat’s Chief leanin’ against it.”

“Seriously?” Henry whispered back, focusing his gaze on the wall in the background. Certainly enough, towards the back of the room and semi-hidden by a refrigerator, sat a figure cloaked entirely in the shadows. Why was he sitting in the shadows? Henry looked back at the nervous Flowey, at the unimpressed Chara, at the two Toppats who were watching the exchange like they were waiting for a bomb to go off – which, given what Henry knew about the two, was probably more true than they realized. Still, Chara’s cool anger and Flowey’s nervous chatter provided a decent distraction, and Henry silently made his way across the lab.

With everyone was preoccupied by Flowey and Chara’s blow up, Henry was able to approach the figure leaning against the refrigerator. Certainly enough, the familiar figure was the Toppat leader; missing that gaudy chain he wore (Why would anyone where that around their neck? It would look much better as decoration on his hat), but was still wearing those two hats for no real reason (Assertion of dominance, maybe?). But something was off; Henry noticed almost immediately, even in the darkness, how unnaturally still he was. He wasn’t dead, though. When Henry leaned closer to check, he found the man’s eyes opened, staring blankly ahead into nothing. They were as dull as stone, a still pool of unfeeling nothingness that caused something in Henry’s chest to tighten.

Jesus, now he was feeling sorry for Toppats? He had to find some sort of protection against Charles’ KINDNESS.

“Did tall, blonde, and creepy steal his soul, too?” Henry asked aloud, catching the attention of everyone nearby. The Toppat Leader immediately stiffened, seeing Henry so close to the Toppat Chief, but before he could respond Headphone Guy curtly called back to him.

“His name is SVEN, asshole.”

Henry opened his mouth to respond with something snappy and witty, but was interrupted by a low, pained groan coming from the man in front of him. The Chief didn’t move a muscle anywhere except his face, letting his lip fall just enough to allow the moan to fall from them, quiet but echoing through the empty, silent labs. Everyone stared.

Big, tall and ugly rushed forward, pushing Henry away roughly and examining the Chief guy carefully. “Wot the bloody ‘ell did ya do…?” He questioned.

“Oh! I was about to tell you!” Flowey poked his head out from between the tiles close by to Henry. “When the cameras went off, I started ranting to myself because I was freaking out, and I talked about Blue Boy. Except, you know, I didn’t say ‘Blue Boy’, I said ‘Sven’, and-” Another moan fell from the lips of the Toppat leader. “...that happened.”

Rupert came up beside Henry, sitting down near the white-haired man. “Did that blue-hat bastard do this, too?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

The Leader and the Headphones Guy exchanged a harsh look, before headphones guy turned to them and relented. “It’s… complicated. Chief Reginald’s in a delicate state right now. His soul-”

“’At’s enough, Curtis.” The Leader stood up and crossed his arms, his protective glare speaking volumes. “Reg’s state ain’t relevant to the current situation. First, we need to know what the bloody ‘ell Sven did down at the government camp.”

In response to the question, Rupert looked to the side, his guilt and anger reflected in his eyes. That left explaining the circumstances to Henry, who sighed out his annoyance. All he could think right now was that Charles would be doing a much better job at handling this batch of misfits then Henry was. “Okay, so right now, at the base of the mountain, all the monsters are currently staying in a government camp while the City Council figures out what to do with them.” A little kinder than Henry personally thought they deserved, but as that information wasn’t necessarily relevant, he left it as is and move on. “Yesterday, a human was found unconscious on the human side of the camp, with no soul. Naturally, the humans freaked out and jumped to conclusions, and the monsters are getting blamed for his soul being stolen. We came here to find the actual thief, which we thought was the flower, thanks to… an unreliable source.”

Henry side-eyed Chara, who rolled their eyes. God, this child was obnoxious.

Rupert continued for Henry. “That soul belonged to the dearest person in my life. ‘Is name is Dave, and I’m ashamed to admit I thought the monsters responsible, too. But it was obvious in hindsight.” Rupert struck them with a fiery glare, orange illuminating his pupils. “EVERY problem in ‘is life goes back to you Toppat bastards.”

Something like recognition lit up in this Curtis guy’s eyes. “Dave? As in Dave Panpa?”

“Rememberin’ the guy ya took prisoner fer no good reason?” The scowl on Rupert’s face spoke more about his feelings than the tone of his voice did.

Curtis nodded. “Yeah, I remember that guy. Nice dude, but super annoying. Seriously, I said hi to him once and he rambled at me for a whole hour-”

If Curtis wasn’t expecting a fireball to the face after saying that, then he was a bigger idiot than Henry thought. (Un)Fortunately, he was able to dodge.

BUT they needed more information on this Sven guy, so Henry reluctantly pulled on Rupert’s arm to draw his attention away from the scumbags. With his eyes, Henry tried to convey that they needed to keep the peace, at least for now. After a moment of eye contact, Rupert’s face relaxed by increments, and he reluctantly nodded his understanding. No fighting. At least for now.

For his part, the Toppat Leader didn’t look mad. He shook his head in disappointment and pointedly whispered to the other man. Judging from the sour look that fell upon his face, Henry guessed it was a formal reprimand, which he absolutely deserved.

Then the Toppat Leader turned to them. “Apologies. He’s…” The man stroked his chin, searching for the right answer, and eventually decided on, “...grieving. A lot’s ‘appened with us, as well. Our chief’s current condition is the result of a magical… accident.” Headphones guy looked away, pursing his lips into an uneasy frown. “We came ‘ere for ‘elp, and Flower Boy’s been providing it.”

“Happy to help!” Flowey piped up with pep, only to cower again as he caught sight of Chara’s glower.

The Leader continued. “When we got ‘ere, we didn’t encounter much trouble. Just… internal shit, I guess. But yesterday the kid went from the magical kiddie pool to the deep end. ‘E tried ta fix what was wrong with Reg and ended up going way too far. That magic gunk ‘e poured on Reg’s soul coulda killed ‘im.”

“Sv- He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t think it would work.” Curtis argued back. “I think, after everything that’s happened, he’s undergoing some sort of psychotic break. He needs help.”

“He needs an exorcist.” Chara declared. “Did you see those tentacles he was attacking with? That was certainly not normal magic. It was downright Lovecraftian.”

It was difficult to restrain the urge to point out that Chara themselves was a horror from beyond the grave, but with his DETERMINATION, Henry managed it. Barely.

“Okay, so why’s your boss freaking out whenever we say Sven’s name?” As if on cue, Toppat Chief Reginald moaned again, and Henry found himself stilling. Now that he was paying attention, that sounded… like something. Not just a moan. A specific sound.

Chara hummed as they pondered. “Perhaps it is a PTSD reaction from this Sven character hurting him”

Another groan. There was no mistaking it: That was a consonant.

“I really hope not.” The red-haired Toppat leader spoke. He brushed back the Chief’s bang with surprising gentleness despite shaky fingers. “As if life ‘asn’t messed ‘im up enough.”

The voice of the Toppat Chief was so garbled it was hard to tell which one, but he was definitely trying to say something.

“I doubt it.” Flowey spoke up. “In his current state, he’s not capable of that sort of emotional response to anything.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time you’d been wrong.”

As they argued in the background, Henry leaned a little closer to this Chief Reginald guy and whispered, just loud enough to be heard. “Sven, Sven, Sven.”

The short chant got the Chief to groan a little louder, but no more clearly.

“And ‘e ‘asn’t done anything like this before?” Rupert inquired.

“Uh, if he had, we wouldn’t be wigging out now, would we?” Curtis shrugged off. “Did that fire burn away your brain cells, bub?”

“I’ll burn away YER brain cells!”

Henry whispered, “Sven, Sven, Sven.”

The same response. Something was definitely happening here.

“Oi!” Finally someone noticed what Henry was doing, and to absolutely nobody’s surprise it was the other Toppat Leader. “Wot do ya think yer doin’ there?”

Henry took a deep breath, then turned to look the guy in the face. “I think your chief is trying to communicate something to us.”

This caused the Leader to perk up, his shoulders stiffening, his eyes widening. Clearly that was not what he was expecting to hear. “Ya sure?” He asked, and underneath the forced calm of his voice Henry could hear a hint of desperation. Looking him directly in the face, it was a lot easier to notice the redness of his eyes, the dark shadows underneath them. In spite of himself, it made Henry’s gut clench. Back after he’d first found Charles, Henry hadn’t slept much, and the little he did get was hardly what one would call restful. And that look in the Leader’s eye; the way his pupils seemed to shrink, darting from Henry to Rupert to Chara to Burt and back again, reminded Henry of that painful time.

Charles was on the path to recover. This Chief, however, was broken in an entirely different way. Henry couldn’t imagine how it’d feel to see his loved one(s?) like this.

“That’s… impossible.” Flowey insisted. “That should be impossible. The degradation of his soul caused by the DETERMINATION overexposure doesn’t allow for that. Since his soul is PATIENCE dominant, what happened yesterday may have reinvigorated the healthier portions of his soul to allow him to retain some thoughts, AT BEST – but he doesn’t have enough BRAVERY to speak those words aloud.”

“Forgive me,” Chara interrupted, “if I’m not immediately persuaded. However, you’ve been wrong about the nature of souls before, Mister ‘Absolute God of Hyperdeath’.”

Despite himself, Curtis snorted. “God of WHAT?”

Today Henry learned that a flower can blush. Apparently.

“T-that’s- how do you even know about that?!” Flowey shrieked. It’s mouth wobbled as it struggled to keep itself contained. “You know I just- It was those stupid- You know what?!” Flowey burrowed into the ground, and emerged next to the door to a bathroom nearby. “Why don’t we stop playing guessing games and scan Twinhat’s soul again? That’ll clear this whole mess up quicker than a giftrot during holiday season!”

“Sure.” Chara agreed readily enough, though their frown didn’t ease in the slightest. “Frisk and I had been learning about Doctor Alphys’ equipment, so the results from them will be far more trustworthy than the likes of you.”

“Being a little hard on him, aren’t you, Chara?” Henry inquired. “I mean, you and Asriel were best friends, but now you’re treating him like-”

Henry didn’t get a chance to finish before Chara turned on him, quicker than his eye could catch. Their eyes darkened, and their entire form became less stable. Their face melted, their hair flew out in odd directions, and their physical body deformed in odd ways, dispelling the illusion that the child was wearing a sweater and jeans and projecting a creature Henry could more accurately describe as an imp. This new form emerged in seconds, and as soon as they’d taken it Chara was in his face, their grin wide and wicked.

“That THING is not Asriel. It’s an abomination wielding his memories and wearing his face. MY Asriel was sweet and gentle. MY Asriel believed in the good of all things.” As they spoke, Chara’s features melted further, slowly becoming more demonic. They turned to Flowey, then, as they uttered, “My Asriel wouldn’t kill an innocent, crying child. Frisk’s DETERMINATION SAVED me. It gave me something to latch onto, a link to reality that I was able to use to bring myself back. And you tried to kill them.” The demonic form melted away as Chara’s words became more personal, revealing the child buried underneath. “My Asriel is gone. You’re just a failed experiment who doesn’t have the good sense to die.”

And with those final cutting words, Chara flew away, melting under the lab’s tile floor.

The awkward silence Chara left in their wake was broken by a simple, “Ouch,” from Curtis, who silently scratched the back of his neck and avoided Flowey’s eyes as he spoke. “Somebody clearly needs anger management classes. You okay, Flowey?”

“…” The silence hung over them for a long second, before Flowey looked up at them with a smile too big and too merry to be genuine. “Puh-lease. I don’t have a soul, remember? I can’t feel anything.”

“Yer an awful liar, Flower Boy.” The Toppat Leader interjected. While Flowey and Chara had been bickering, he’d forced the Toppat Chief to his feet. “If ya got somethin’ ta say, ya can just say it.”

Flowey refused to take this bait, smiling up at them. “Nah, I’m good. I’ll, uh, go warm up the machine. Meet you down there!” The flower burrowed under the tiles again, and this time stayed down. If Henry stood still and focused, he could hear the sound of it tunneling beneath his feet, which was actually a fairly creepy sound.

The Toppat leader sighed, dragged Chief Reginald beside him in a human crutch style carry. As they followed behind, Henry heard Rupert muttering behind him, “When did my life become a goddamned soap opera?”

And honestly? Same.

--------------------

Henry had no frame of reference for what Flowey would later refer to as ‘the True Labs’, so he was forced to keep close to Rupert the literal human torch (who did not seem happy to be used as a lamp, but did it anyways) and follow the lead of the two dangerous Toppat clan members who both had fairly solid reasons to want them dead. All in all, not the most dangerous thing he’d ever done, but probably up there. If Charles were present, Henry could imagine the spirited soul lightening the mood with his supernatural powers of extroversion and optimism.

Chara and Flowey were already waiting for them when they arrived. The atmosphere was palpably tense.

“Ookay.” Flowey was situated at a familiar looking machine, reminiscent of the scanner Doctor Alphys used to examine Henry and Charles’ souls. “Just have Twinhat stand in the center of the room and I’ll launch another scan.”

The Toppat Leader guided Chief Reginald to the designated spot. Henry took this opportunity to back up against the wall.

His actions didn’t go unnoticed. Rupert immediately inquired. “Wot’s up ‘Enry? Is ‘at thing dangerous?” He immediately regarded the device with skepticism.

To that, Henry shook his head. “Nah, it’s perfectly safe. I just don’t feel like having the innermost depths of my soul mechanically analyzed.” Which was a partially true explanation as an afterthought, but not Henry’s primary motivation. Doctor Alphys had learned about Henry’s fragile condition with this machine back when it was still relatively minor, and now it had been exasperated. As one might imagine, this wasn’t exactly information he wanted spread out to the general public, let alone people he’d personally screwed over.

Curtis nodded in understanding. “Yeah, that makes sense. Actually, let me join you.” And he, too, stood against the wall as far from the machine as he could. Rupert didn’t seem to care, since the device wasn’t any immediate threat, and nobody else seemed to have any sort of problem with the scanner.

The scanner worked quicker than the one Doctor Alphys had. Perhaps because this was a more advanced model of the machine she was already using. Chirping and whirling sounds filled the air as the machine spat out a piece of paper. Flowey made sounds that echoed the machine’s as it worked. When the paper finally finished printing, Chara snatched it up just as Flowey was about to grab it, and they shot him a glare that caused him to wilt away with a nervous smile before they looked at the data.

“And, as expected, Flowey’s initial assessment was entirely incorrect!” Chara turned the chart around, showing what was honestly an abysmal assessment. His soul readings were about as close to minimal as one could get, with a minor peak of the cyan PATIENCE line and, if one looked closely, the slightest hint of a bump with orange BRAVERY. “As you can see, hearing about Sven,” They paused so as not speak over Reginald’s pitiful attempt to speak, “triggered a spike of BRAVERY in this mess of a soul.”

The Toppat Leader looked faintly like he wanted to argue the point, but instead held his tongue and helped Reginald over to a wall, only barely managing to keep them both upright as his body swayed uneasily.

“’At’s a spike?” Rupert squinted at the graph. “It’s barely a molehill.”

“It’s more than he had yesterday.” Flowey pointed out. “But how did that happen?”

Curtis walked past them quickly, approaching Reginald with DETERMINATION in his eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? The old man was right. He’s trying to tell us something about Sven.”

This time Henry spoke over the feeble attempt from Reginald to form words. “Old man?!” Excuse you, bitch, Henry was an albino, thank you very much! Now, Henry was mature enough not to start a fight over this slight, but he wasn’t above sticking his tongue out at Curtis behind his back.

If Curtis noticed anything, he didn’t respond. He instead knelled right in front of his chief and gripped him by the shoulders, looking into his eyes and pleading. “Sir, please. If you know something about what’s going on with Sven, you have to tell us! Please!”

Reginald gave a low groan, but did not respond further.

“It’s not going to work, my friend.” Chara declared calmly. “If it was as simple as that, he would have been able to manage it himself. Something is inspiring BRAVERY in him, but it’s not enough.”

“Then let’s just give ‘em more.” Rupert said, as though it was as simple as it sounded. “I mean, the Doc was able to give Charles this DETERMINATION stuff. We can give this guy BRAVERY, right?”

“Oh! What a BRILLIANT plan!” Flowey chirped up in his faux cheerfulness. “And let me ask you, how would we be doing this? We barely understand how souls work. DETERMINATION can be extracted, but the other traits? That’s more complicated.”

“Well, nobody else is making suggestions!” Rupert complained.

Humming curiously, Henry reached into his backpack and pulled out something he hadn’t touched in days: the book on soul traits he’d purchased shortly after finding Charles. Once his lost friend was safely in the monster’s care, Henry hadn’t really had use for the tome anymore. Well, now there might be something in here on BRAVERY. He opened it and began skimming through the content.

Rupert peeked over his shoulder curiously. “Whatchya got there?”

“It’s a book that has a lot of info about souls.” Henry answered, still flicking through the pages. “It’s basically some magical researchers compilation of old knowledge and stories, haphazardly translated and stuck in the fiction section of failing bookstores across the nation.”

“WHAT?!” Flowey shrieked, his vines growing up out of the ground and grasping for the book. Henry held it out of reach. “What- no! Let me see it!”

“Later.” Henry promised absently. At last, he found what he was looking for. “A-ha! Okay, here’s what we’ve got: ‘BRAVERY, as an Element of the Soul, has a primarily offensive purpose. It determines how well you can cope with the outside World, and how you face the challenges that come before you. Those with low amounts of BRAVERY have a tendency to retreat within themselves, and will often refuse to step up to the challenges of life. On the contrary, high levels of BRAVERY creates souls that are more willing to ACT, and often take up jobs nobody else is able or willing to do. Now, this does not mean that those with a BRAVERY dominant Soul are absent of fear. But instead, their fear is more likely to motivate them than to cripple them.

“When it comes to magic, those with a BRAVERY-dominant Soul are gifted with the ability to COMMAND the Elements.’” Henry grinned. “Hey, Rupert, it’s not just fire you can control. It’s all the elements.”

The face Rupert put on suggested he hadn’t considered that. “...Uh, neat, I guess. But I like fire. It’s cool. And pretty. And… cool.”

With a smug smile, Curtis commented. “If you’re that keen on fire, we’ve always got an arsonist’s spot open in the Toppats.”

“You wish.” Rupert sneered back, not nearly as amused as Curtis was. “I’ll see about COMMANDING other elements later. Wot else does that book say?”

Right. Henry returned to reading. “Let’s see… some general theory on the function of BRAVERY in the soul, some implied horoscope-type general nonsense on the nature of BRAVERY… huh. Listen to this.” Henry began pacing as he read the passage. “’BRAVERY in comparison to other traits is unique, as unlike the others it wanes and waxes as necessarily, tending to sway in amounts far more than other traits. It’s lack of consistency is often made up for in its potency, as just a tiny amount of BRAVERY can sway even the most shaky of souls into ACTION. BRAVERY is an element that responds to need; when one needs to be BRAVE, that is what they become.’”

Everybody turned to look at Reginald, who stared ahead and didn’t respond to anything.

“...So… his soul is responding to something he needs to say.” Flowey mused. “But it’s not able to respond enough for him to get it out. Does it say anything about invoking or transfusing BRAVERY?”

“Um…” Henry continued to skim through the fluff, then turned the page. “It’s pretty nonsensical. Something about ‘sharing a vision’ and ‘inspiring BRAVERY’. I don’t understand it.”

A blanket of silence fell over the room as they all considered the words, and what they could mean. But before any of them could come to a conclusion, Rupert’s surprisingly weak voice broke through their concentration. “No… I think I get it. BRAVERY, it’s somethin’ you can share. Somethin’ ya can give ta someone else when you inspire them, when yer fightin’ side by side, and you know they just need a little more strength ta go on, and, and you can give it ta them, just by bein’ there for ‘em!” Rupert turned to Henry, obviously excited. “Ya know?”

“Huh.” Chara blinked. “You’re not quite as stupid as you appear.”

“I am feelin’ good enough about myself that I am going to ignore that!”

Flowey popped up next to him. “Well, okay, but that doesn’t mean much if you can’t use it. Do you think you can get whatever Twinhat wants to say out of him.”

A grim expression crossed Rupert’s face, and it suddenly dawned on Henry what they were asking of the soldier. This man lead the organization that had ripped Dave away from him. And here they were, asking Rupert to help him, with no guarantee of an answer that benefited them even if it went well. When he thought about it like that, Henry was surprised that Rupert wasn’t biting their heads off.

Hesitantly, Henry let a hand settle on Rupert’s shoulder. “Hey, man. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

The declaration earned him some sour looks from the Toppats, but Henry was beyond caring about them.

“I don’t want to do this.” Rupert declared. “But… I have to. Fer Dave. Fer all the monsters that suffered because of this whole mess. Heh.” Rupert looked up at Henry. “Look at me. Defending monsters.”

“Life works in mysterious ways.” Henry responded.

That seemed to be all the encouragement Rupert needed. With slow steps, like a man walking to his grave, Rupert came up to the standing Chief of the Toppat Clan, very clearly putting in the effort not to look up at the haggard, tense face of the other Toppat Leader. Taking in a breath to steady himself, Rupert reached forward and pulled the Chief’s soul from his chest and Jesus. Henry thought his soul was in bad shape, but his was literally in the process of fading. Looking directly at the sickly gray light made Henry feel nauseous. How was he still alive?

Rupert either didn’t know what the odd appearance of his soul meant or didn’t care as his own made an appearance. He reached forward to grab the broken soul, and Henry saw the Toppat Leader tense physically at the sight of someone so close to the precious heart. But Rupert was careful as he cradled it, and he whispered. His whispers were soft and gentle, and Henry could only catch a few encouraging words. The rest was like a soft buzz in his ears.

The orange light of Rupert’s soul grew stronger, and the light flowed from Rupert to Reginald. Looking directly upon it, Henry felt stronger. Tenser. BRAVER.

“S-Sven… he…” Chief Reginald choked out.

Both of the other Toppats crowded around him, which didn’t seem like the smartest thing to do, but Henry could understand why they were both so excited. The Leader placed a tender hand on his cheek. “Reg, Love.” The Leader whispered. “It’s okay, you can say it. We’re listening.” Despite the bleary dull of his eyes, the Toppat Leader was entirely focused on Chief Reginald.

“What about Sven, sir?” Curtis demanded, a little more panicked than his boss. “Please, whatever it is, you have to tell us!”

“H-he… called it… Gaster.”

And then his face fell. Rupert tried to prod him into revealing more, but it seemed that was all he could bring himself to say.

Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.

“Uh…” Flowey reluctantly broke the silence after some time. “Gaster. Does that mean anything to anyone?”

Immediately Rupert shook his head. “’Ere aren’t any monsters called ‘Gaster’ in the camp. And I’ve never met any ‘umans by that name.”

“It’s not a name that’s come up in any of my research either.” Henry mused aloud. Should he know that name? No, he’d never heard it once. But what did it mean? What did it-?

“I know of Gaster.”

Everybody looked back at Chara.

“While traveling the Underground, Frisk and I stumbled upon a number of… odd monsters that spoke of a Royal Scientist before Doctor Alphys. They made Frisk greatly uncomfortable, so we were never alone with them long, but every one of them told us a little tidbit of the tale of Doctor WD Gaster. A monster who built the core, devoted his life to science and escaping the Underground, and then fell into his creation and became scattered across space and time.”

Curtis stepped forward. He looked more serious and focused than Henry had seen him so far. “So this Gaster guy is behind Sven’s weird behavior.”

“It makes sense.” Chara agrees. “While it’s unbecoming of an intelligent person to jump to conclusions, we’re talking about monster created the CORE that powered the Underground. He was an unrivaled genius, and if anybody could figure out how to steal souls without killing the host, it would be a monster who managed to fragment the space-time continuum.”

“Uh, did you forget the part where he’s SCATTERED across SPACE and TIME?” Flowey interrupted. “This guy’s not around. He’s probably not even alive.”

“That does not mean he’s not responsible for what’s happening.” Chara countered quickly. “As my presence clearly indicates, death does not necessarily preclude you from involvement. My vanished soul had been restored by Frisk’s DETERMINATION, and sheltered by their body until I was able to obtain this form… somehow…” Chara looked down at themselves, frustrated by their own confusion over how their ghostly body worked. “It may actually be that Gaster’s present with Sven in a similar manner.”

“So, like, he’s manipulating Sven.” Burt immediately jumped onto this idea, clinging to this hope that this Sven guy wasn’t responsible for what was happening. While it was understandable how he’d be clinging to any hope he could, a part of Henry recalled the strange way Sven was talking, how his blood had been replaced by black ooze, and wondered if he was beyond SAVING.

Flowey still wasn’t satisfied. “And how would that work?! Sven’s a human, and this guy’s a monster! A monster whose soul was probably destroyed EONS ago!”

“We’re just throwing out theories right now. We won’t know what’s actually going on until we catch Sven and get him to talk.” Chara muttered to themselves, various ideas about how to track down and capture the soul thief, until Rupert’s very annoyed fake coughing knocked them out of it. “Ah, right, we can talk about that later. For now, let’s all head back and inform King Asgore and the General of the situation. You’ll all need to come with us, of course.” Chara turned to them. “We will need all the help we can get against a creature smart enough to cheat at magic.”

“’ard pass.”

Everybody turned around to face the Toppat Leader. He’d just finished fixing the messed up shirt of his boss (lover? There was definitely something going on between them) and had escorted the dull-eyed Chief to a nearby chair. He was facing away from them as he growled. “As long as Sven doesn’t come anywhere near Reg, we’ll be fine ‘ere. Curtis, ya can go with ‘em if ya really want, but I’ve gotta keep up this research.”

Everyone just continued staring, taking in the nonsensical declaration. Seriously? He wanted to stay in this dark, empty place?

“That would be a terrible idea, for multiple reasons.” Chara flew over to him, their tone polite and casual. Henry caught sight of the Toppat Leader’s eye twitching, and suddenly remembered his earlier assessment that this guy hadn’t slept in some time. He tried to call Chara back, whisper shouting at them, but they either failed to hear him or, more likely, pretended not to. “I don’t know if its an ego issue or if you’re just stupid, but staying down here will make you and your husband perfect targets for soul theft. Or do you think Flowey can protect you? Hardly. Flowey couldn’t protect wet tissue paper.”

“Ah, Chara…?” Rupert, too, was noticing the Toppat Leader tensing, noticing how his fists were clenching so hard they were turning red.

“...The Chief’s recovery comes before everything.” The Leader growled at them, his eyes narrowing.

Chara paid Rupert no mind. “If that’s the case, then why needlessly place him in danger? And in addition to all that, the information you have on Sven is imperative to our success. You should come with us voluntarily. We can, and will, make you come with us if we need to!” At this point, Henry winced and turned away, knowing their wasn’t much he could do to stop the train wreck at this point. “Between the flower and your braindead Chief, there isn’t much you can do to protect yourselves-”

That was the final straw, and the Toppat Leader whirled around and aimed a solid punch at Chara’s ghostly form. They nimbly flew out of his way, but this did not deter the Toppat in the slightest. He glowered at all of them, standing between the entire group and Chief Reginald, his stance tensed and angry like an angry mother bear.

“You had to provoke him.” Henry growled.

“I was attempting to encourage him to make the correct choice by pointing out the fruitlessness of his situation. Frisk pulled stunts like that all the time.” Argued back the spirit, who had taken a combat position behind Rupert. The soldier had armed himself with fire, but unlike Chara, didn’t make a move towards the Toppat, instead keeping his eyes locked with Henry’s, waiting for his command before doing anything. Curtis simply stood back, awkwardly watching the fight while rubbing his shoulder.

“...Then next time, leave the ACTING to Frisk. They’re clearly better at it.” Henry advised, taking a careful step forward.

Their quiet argument had set off the already angry man, and Henry had to immediately duck to dodge a chair thrown his way. He winced as this caused his injured side to burn. The Leader’s eyes, practically illuminated by the odd light of the True Labs, attempted to burn a hole through Henry as he shouted. “Don’t think I can protect wot’s mine, eh?! I’m the Right Hand Man of the Toppat Clan, its strongest enforcer, its greatest weapon!” His eyes darted around, trying to figure out which of them would attack first. “Come on, ‘en! Let me-!”

“Hey!” Before he could properly FIGHT, a vine suddenly burst out from the ground and looped around the Toppat Right Hand’s arm, forcing him down into a knelling position. Flowey poked his head out from under the ground, looking mournfully up at the leader. “Hey, it’s alright. You don’t have to FIGHT.”

“Wot are ya doin’, Flower Boy?!” The Right Hand struggled against the vines. “’Ey’re gonna arrest us- gonna put us back in prison! They’re gonna just leave ‘im like this! I can’t- I can’t let them-”

“Shh…” Flowey gently released his vines, allowing the tired man to fall to the floor. “Listen, Big Guy- Right Hand Man. I know I promised to help you guys, but Chara was right. I know stuff about DETERMINATION, but only because I mooched off of Alphys’ research. I was wrong about Twinhat not being able to react to outside stimuli in his current state. I have no clue if Sven hurting him is what triggered that spike of BRAVERY, or if it was something else. I don’t even know if I’m right about my own lack of a soul sometimes.” Flowey leaned forward, resting his face on the Right Hand Man’s knee while looking up at his face. “Reginald needs help. More than I can provide. And I think Doctor Alphys at the camp can give it to you. She created me, after all. She knows more about DETERMINATION and souls than any monster alive.”

Seeing what Flowey was doing, Henry also piped in, giving a glowing review of Alphys’ greatest act, in his unbiased opinion. “She helped take care of my dead friend’s soul while we figured out how to wake him up.” Then, almost as an afterthought, added, “Oh, and she saved my life once.”

“And if anyone tried to take him away,” Flowey pulled one of his roots out from the ground, letting it trail up the Right Hand Man’s arm. The Toppat didn’t fight it as Flowey pulled himself onto his shoulder, smiling from his new vantage point, “I’ll be right there to help you put them in their place. I… don’t like the idea of leaving the Underground myself. Something like me has no place in the world. But I’ll come with you to back you up anyways. With your time powers, and my magic and… ‘friendliness’,” Flowey grinned wickedly, creating a few white pellets and letting them slam against the wall, leaving new holes in the lab, “We’ll just bust outta there before they could lay a finger on your husband! But… we have to try Doctor Alphys. For his sake.

“You said you trusted me. Let me prove that I deserve it.”

The Toppat’s Right Hand Man took a shuttering breath and finally, shakily, stood back up. Flowey remained on his shoulder.

“...Al’ight. I’ll give ‘er one shot. But if this broad screws it up…” He trailed off, not needing to finish his sentence. That frigid glare told Henry all he needed to know about what would happen if the worst came to pass. “Curtis! Go get our bags… Sven’s too. We’re relocating.”

“Roger, sir.” Curtis saluted and rushed off to parts unknown.

“Then I suppose we should return.” Chara noted, but they did not look entirely pleased by the victory. And following their eyes, Henry saw the reason for that disappointment mounted on the Right Hand’s shoulder. “This is quite the mess.”

“Speakin’ of messes,” Rupert’s fingers suddenly, sharply, gripped on Chara’s ear, causing them to squeal in surprise, “Why don’t you an’ I have a conversation on ‘hostile negotiations’ and ‘unnecessary escalation’.” It took quite a bit of DETERMINATION, but Henry managed to suppress his snickering as Rupert dragged them out of the room for a proper verbal beat down. Rupert was already easily frustrated, and Chara making things pointlessly difficult must have pushed him over the edge.

He’d have to ask for an abridged version, later.

With them taken care of, Henry turned to the previously upset Toppat. He was groaning and rubbing his temples, muttering bitter, unusually distressed words about how stupid he was to let himself be caught in these crazy situations. Flowey was attempting to console him. Behind them, Chief Reginald was sitting on the ground. His eyes were staring blankly ahead. His mouth made slight movements as he breathed in and out. Dark circles under his eyes suggested he hadn’t properly rested in some time. His open palm was visibly twitching. Every article of clothing on him was wrinkled or otherwise disheveled, with even his hats being crooked. The muscles of his shoulders were entirely lax-

Henry paused, blinked, and returned his attention to Reginald’s hand. Still and boneless, just like the rest of him. Had he imagined that? With a sigh, Henry rubbed his temple and wondered if maybe he should’ve spared the time to visit Alphys after all.

“Before we head back,” Henry made sure to get their attention, then stuck out his hand to the Toppat’s Right Hand. “Henry Stickmin, Private Investigator.” That was how he generally introduced himself after the airship mission. It was a bit more respectable than ‘ex-thief’. “And you are…?”

The guy seemed reluctant, but at Flowey’s silent prodding he agreed and shook Henry’s hand. “Right ‘and Man of the Toppat Clan. I’d say it’s a pleasure, but we both know it’s not.”

Fair enough. Henry quirked his brow and asked, “Is that really your name?”

“Nope.”

“...you want to share it?”

“Nope.”

“Oookay, then.”

--------------------

Buried somewhere in the mountain, deeper than even the True Lab, was yet another laboratory. Papers were scattered haphazardly everywhere, and a fine coating of dust covered every surface. The air should have been still in this untouched lab, but instead it was filled with the screeching of chalk against a blackboard as somebody furiously scribbled against a blackboard.

They paused suddenly, and put the chalk down.

“Ah, so it is possible. Marvelous, marvelous.”

Gaster grinned wickedly, and picked up something nearby. It darkened in his grip; the deepest black one could imagine. The darkness was beautiful.

--------------------

Ugh, this chapter was a pain to write. I hope everything makes sense.

So, a bunch of stuff happened this chapter. Rupert's BRAVERY transfusion won't help Reg long term. It was a temporary boost. If you have any questions I'll answer them, though some might be answered next chapter. :)

[absinthe-and-abstinence]

An Unhealthy Obsession: Chapter 19

A Heart-to-Heart, and an Eye-to-Eye

TW: yelling, reckless driving, language, slight (?) non-consensual activity, partial nudity, and biting-ish?

Aw, man! You all have been amazing readers, and I'm so glad you're all enjoying the story so far. I didn't think I'd really get a pair of eyes on this; the fact it's getting as popular as it is getting is unbelievable to me. Thank you all. More content is coming your way, and that means more answers, and more questions. I'm always available on Tumblr or my Twitter as well. Thank you all, and enjoy. X

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You yelled as you raced down the highway, afraid that the interstate cameras might catch your plate and you.

“Why didn’t you leave with them? You had the chance!”

He hadn’t calmed down yet. “I know, I know…” he muttered as he wrestled his hands through his hair.

“Jesus Christ, Spence. I kidnapped you and even I know how stupid that is.”

His body trembling, he put up his hand to his face. “I-I…”

“You’re not anything. You’re just stupid.”

Your emotions were too intertwined and intense to untangle. Were you mad? Disappointed? Relieved? Confused? Scared? Perhaps, but you were so caught up in this moment that you couldn’t decipher anything. The only emotion you could define was the panic that was written all over the face of Spencer.

“You told me to get in the car,” he whispered.

“No, I didn’t,” you hissed, “I told you to make a decision. I had to leave and your team was right there. God, Spencer, why didn’t you go with them?”

“I-I don’t know. Maybe I wasn’t ready to go back, maybe I was just scared…I…”

You raced down the highway, going faster than any speed limit required.

“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re the one who made the decision, I’m just asking you why!”

He ran his hand up to his hair and pulled on it.

“It really doesn’t help when you yell at me, you know.”

You sat there, face flushed and red. Regardless of anything else you felt, you decided you were absolutely pissed off. You sat there, simmering and steaming as he tried to calm himself down.

“Please, Spence, just say something. Anything.”

His breathing was beginning to slow down again.

“Their faces looked so scared when they saw me. Like they saw a ghost.”

“Well,” you replied exasperated, “you have been technically missing for months. If you were looking for one of them who went missing; how’d you feel when you found them again? What if it was Derek that had gone missing?”

“You know,” he laughed, “how do you even know what Derek’s like? You’ve never met him.”

You kept your eyes on the road. “I think you’re forgetting I’m the crazy, obsessive villain here. Watching you meant watching the people around you too.”

“That is one of the scariest things someone has ever said to me.”

You chuckled, then remembered instantly your anger and frustration. You forced the smile off your face and turned onto your exit. How could he be so irritating, making you smile while seeing red?

“Anyway. They’ve only gotten one call from you, and the first time they see you again – you run? You don’t think that’s terrifying to them?”

“I-I, uh, I didn’t think about that.”

“Spence. Again; how would you react?”

He fidgeted with his hands, locking and interlocking his fingers. “Also scared. Confused. Shocked.”

The house began to become visible within the ghostly dark forest. It was still a far ways off, but you could start to make it out.

“So why did you run?”

“I don’t know…I guess I’m just afraid of losing you?”

You almost slammed on your brakes.

“…What?”

“I-I’m not sure. I’ve lost a lot of people in my life, I just don’t want that to happen to you.”

Something inside you snapped, and you shut down. At this point, you didn’t know if you were blushing or if you were reaching your boiling point. He seemed nervous, glancing back at you to see if you’d speak again. You remained silent, and kept your face emotionless. In the corner of your eye you could see his hands continue to fidget and flop around, but you didn’t care.

Finally, you arrived at the house. You marched out the car door and stomped up to the front door. Forcibly placing the key inside the lock, you slammed open the front door and turned on the hallway light before Spencer had even shut his passenger side door.

You waited for him behind the corner, listening to hear him come up the front steps and through the door. As soon as he shut the front door and turned around, you caught him off guard.

“Listen, Spence. I think you’ve forgotten who I am,” you growled.

“I, I know who you are, Y/N,” he stammered.

You led him up against a wall and pinned him there with your hands on each side of his body.

“I’m not someone you miss, Spencer. I’m someone who took you from your friends and family to a house in the middle of nowhere.”

He stared down at you, taking a gulp of air.

“You want to know how I got you here? I drugged your coffee with cough syrup; did you know that? I figured you should know that.”

The words escaped your lips on their own, unaware if this was a fear tactic or a confession.

“You had an electric collar around your neck, do you remember that? I tied you up downstairs in the basement here, to keep you. I remember that day clearly, do you?”

You kept your eyes on him, his eyes glancing anywhere but your own gaze. A bead of sweat appeared on his brow.

“I’m not someone you miss, Spencer. I’m someone you should be afraid of. More than the reaction of anyone on your team.”

You started to take off his jacket, then unraveled the scarf from around his head.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

Your hands shaking, out of fear, frustration, and the amalgamation of emotions that kept flaming inside you.

“You, my good Spencer, ran away from me twice. You came back to me the first time, sick and scared. The second time I found you, you were so intoxicated you couldn’t tell one person’s face from another. It’s common for unsubs to punish their victims for escaping. So,” you trailed off, now revealing a devilish grin, “it’s time for me to play the role.”

As you began to undo the buttons on his shirt, he quivered.

“W-what role?”

Pop, pop, went the buttons as you worked your way down his white collared shirt.

“The role you seemed to forget I play. I’m the unsub in this little story.”

You rolled the sleeves down his arms, revealing his bare chest. Now that it was naked and available, you could see the waves of breathing; inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. You took your hands and pinned his wrists to the wall; making them eye-level up from you. You licked your lips and began to kiss his neck.

He moaned softly, but you pretended not to hear it. The idea of him getting any satisfaction right now made you angrier, and your kisses became harder and faster against his skin.

“When you ran away from me, you let other people mark your skin,” you said between kisses and breaths, “now it’s my turn to mark you as mine.”

Your kisses turned harsher as you began to use your teeth against his neck. They wouldn’t appear yet, but where you passionately put your lips would become dark, indigo bruises later against his skin. You took one hand off of his wrists, and used your fingernails to trail down his chest.

Slowly, you began to work your way across and down. You worked first towards the shoulder closest to you, dragging your nails across his chest as you left lovemarks tiled on him. As your fingers floated across his form, you could feel his breathing getting faster and his body getting warmer.

“Is it still punishment if I enjoy it?”

You didn’t stop your actions for a second. In fact, as he muttered those words and you could almost taste the panting from his mouth, it encouraged you to work faster, to work harder, and suddenly – that fire that you had had once; this raw, burning, sensation that tickled your bones the moment you saw him onscreen; that insatiable obsession that drew you deeper and deeper into the cesspool of Spencer Reid – had caught flame again.

“Shut the fuck up,” you hissed, as you smashed your lips against his.

You tried to force the kiss, but every time you went back to kiss him again, his lips met yours with a passion akin to yours. Unsure if it felt amazing to have this sensation, that he may want you the way you wanted him, or if it was more irritating than anything – that as much as you were trying to prove a point; you were a dangerous person who shouldn’t be trusted and would only hurt him, he was so excited by you that your lesson had flown right over his head. The more you tried to kiss him harder, he’d meet your mouth with the same unexpected fury.

The one hand you had remaining on his wrist you brought into his scalp, and began to play with his hair with your fingers. He whimpered softly into your breath, and he moved his lips away to make that sound.

“Ah,” was the only noise you could muster as you took a tucket of his hair and pulled gently on it. He took a sharp breath and tilted his head back. You used one hand to pull different spots of his hair, the other hand you guided towards his stomach to rack your nails slowly across, and moved your lips slowly off of his mouth, down his chin, and down his neck.

You two slowly, in one unison, unspoken, walked your way over to the couch. He toppled onto it, you quickly taking your position on top of him – dominating him.

“God, I’ve wanted to do this for so long,” you muttered as you worked your mouth down the base of his throat to his pectorals. “I’ve wanted to know what it’d be like to be with you, to touch your body.”

His eyes rolled back as he said, “Please, Y/N, then. Explore the all of me.”

You took your mouth off of his chest to meet his gaze. His expression wasn’t one of fear, worry, or apprehension. It was a calm, serene one, that even through a flushed complexion and wavering breathing, met your eyes with a sense of serenity.

You took one of his hands, and kissed his wrist. You kissed it gently, with the softest of intentions. He held it up higher for you, as you planted sweet kisses from his lower arm up towards his biceps. You worked your way up back to his shoulder, giving him the sweetest of touches where your marks had already started to become visible.

“Is this what your life is, just trauma after trauma?” you asked as you began to work on the other wrist. “Do you just wave from horrible thing to horrible thing?”

“You’re not a horrible thing. Not to me,” he whispered.

You kept going, not listening to his reply.

“Is that why you wake up and do your job, regardless of anything evil you had seem before? You’ve learned just to tuck that trauma away from another day?”

“It’s not trauma if I want you to do this.”

You took both your hands and wrapped it around the hand of the arm you had been loving.

“You know I’m not healthy. I’m not good for you in any way.”

“Well,” he answered, clapping his free hand against your own, “as a doctor, I must say your hypothesis needs a little work. You’re not healthy for me. I’m probably not very great for you either, giving into you like this. But,” he said, as he began to sit up, “you were wrong about one thing.

You’re the best thing I could ever want or need right now.”

And this time, the first time sober, he kissed you square on the lips.

He guided his hands out of yours, holding your head steady. He worked his own hand up into your hair, stroking it softly. You returned his kiss, and he used his other hand to cradle your cheek. The tension in your entire body melted, and you swooned into him.

“There we go,” he murmured, as he guided you down onto the couch, this time with him on top of you.

“You’re not scary,” he continued to move his lips from your lips onto your cheek. “Quite the opposite, really.”

This time, it was you who had grown soft and panted to his touch.

“You see, people,” he whispered, as he tuck a lock of hair behind your ear, and worked his way down your neck, “sometimes feel a need to deflect their thoughts and feelings. You want me to be scared of you, Y/N, because you’re afraid. Maybe you feel guilty. Maybe you’re scared I’d leave again. Or maybe,” he stopped, “you’re afraid that for the first time in a long time, someone has ever cared for you back in this way.”

Oh god.

He began to work the sweater off of you, past your chest, past your shoulders, over your head, and onto the floor. He continued to speak.

“I know what it likes to be scared of being with another person. Feeling that they may see you for this gross, unlovable person you truly are. You’re so worried that they may leave you for who you are, you push them away first. That way you get hurt, but its your own fault, and you’d think it’d hurt a little less that way.”

For the first time since the shower, Spencer saw your chest, your lingerie moving up and down with the movement of your respiratory system.

“I never called people back, no matter how much I cared about them. If they saw where I came from, what my mind was like, what I saw everyday…” he stopped speaking for a moment or two, taking time to place his lips onto your collarbone. His warmness sent a tingle up your spine, and he continued.

“I know my team is waiting for me, looking for me. I know that I shouldn’t be here, and certainly not on top of you. But you know what, Y/N?”

He looked up at you, a soft smile on his face.

“I really couldn’t care right now.”

“I…” you muttered, not even sure what to say.

As if he knew, he shushed you and place a finger up to your lips. You kissed it gently.

“May I?” he asked, tucking his thumb underneath your bra.

You nodded, and he slowly lifted your bra off your chest and over your head.

The way he played with you was gentle, and it made you feel safe, in a weird way. Comforted. The way he cupped your breast and slid his fingers around it – it didn’t feel risqué or sensual. It felt natural, as if he was exploring your body and not trying to slip into it.

He embraced one breast with one hand, and place his mouth around the other. It sent shivers all the way up you, and you hadn’t ever realize how sensitive that area was until now.

“Spence…”

He slowly stopped his activity, looking back up at you with puppy-dog eyes.

“I’m supposed to be teaching you a lesson. I’m supposed to be punishing you.”

He lifted you up gently as to see eye-to-eye.

“Even if I was stricken down from the gods above, you would not be a punishment to me. If you were my hamartia, I’d chose to the pain of an arrow in my heel if that meant I got to have you in my life.”

How gentle this felt. It almost didn’t feel real, like a blurry dream far-off. But as Spencer placed one arm underneath your back and slipped the other underneath the back of your knee to carry you off the couch to upstairs, you realized: this was real. Regardless if you came from another world or this one was made of fiction, it was real enough for you. Spencer was real enough for you. Even if you got arrested, you decided, and locked up for a million years, the way he smiled and looked at you now would be worth everything you had done up to this point.

He carried you up into your bedroom and let you fall tenderly onto the bed. He kissed your forehead and as he began to leave the room, you asked him if he might spend the night with you in this bed. He chuckled at that and replied,

“I think I get to decide that as my last birthday present of the night. It’s a good way to end a birthday.”

He climbed in and curled up next to you, and you two melted into one another. You wrapped your bodies around one another, one embracing the other.

“Sorry for, you know, running out of a bar and yelling at you on your birthday.”

He laughed.

“I’ve had a lot worse birthdays than that.”

As he drifted off into a slumber, you whispered good night to him, and fell asleep yourself, no longer worried about the possibility of a team of trained hunters coming to find you.

Which was great, since they had caught the last two numbers of your plate, and with the make and model of your car, and all the video footage of you driving hectic earlier, that was all they needed.

And they were coming.

Taglist:

@thatsonezesty13

[hrtiu]

I know you're probably tired of writing but I LOVE your Rexsoka!!! Would it be possible to see a Rebels Rexsoka where Ahsoka gets injured bad and Rex has to sit by helplessly as she's taken care of by medical staff... and maybe with the Ghost crew seeing how it affects him... (aka they figure out how close the two are). Also, maybe a follow up of Ahsoka frustrated with her injury because she's not used to needing help. Was thinking leg injury. Love seeing vulnerable Ahsoka. Thanks!

I’m sorry it took me so long to get to this ask, but thank you so much for submitting it! Rexsoka will always be my favorite TCW ship, and I love writing for it! I hope you enjoy.

“We’re coming in hot!” Hera shouted from the cockpit.

“Ezra, get the door!” Kanan said, moving to grip Ahsoka under her shoulders. “Zeb, you get her legs.”

The Ghost’s breaking thrusters screamed in protest as Hera pulled her in for a rushed landing. The landing gear struck the landing pad of Chopper Base with a heavy thunk and Ezra dashed for the door and punched it open. He ran down the gangplank and Kanan and Zeb carried an unconscious Ahsoka out of the ship after him.

The first person Ezra saw was Rex, puttering around by the generator. “Rex! Get the med unit ready! Ahsoka’s been injured!”

Rex looked up from the generator in confusion, then his eyes fell on Ahsoka’s limp form in Kanan and Zeb’s care. The bacta pad tied around her waist was keeping her alive, but it couldn’t block the trail of red liquid oozing from her torso. 

Rex’s face went white as his beard. “What happened?”

“No time,” huffed Ezra. “Get the med unit!”

Rex’s eyes glazed over, and Ezra wondered if now would be the moment Rex’s unstoppable soldier persona decided to fail. Then the former clone captain snapped to attention, dropped the tools he’d been carrying to the ground, and ran full-tilt towards the med bunker near the back of the base.

Ezra helped hold Ahsoka steady while Kanan and Zeb carried her to the med bunker. They set Ahsoka gingerly down on the med unit and Rex set to work cleaning, cauterizing, and redressing her wound. Kanan and Zeb left to update Hera, and Ezra made himself useful however he could, grabbing bacta, bandages, the cauterizer—whatever Rex needed.

“What happened?” Rex asked again as he carefully peeled off Ahsoka’s ruined bandages. “I thought this was supposed to be a low-security munitions factory.”

“It was, but something went wrong with the charges we set. The explosion radius was bigger than we thought, and a piece of shrapnel got Ahsoka.”

Rex’s lips pulled together and his brows furrowed, but he didn’t look away from his work. “Got it.”

The rest of the crew of the Ghost hovered about just outside the med bunker, but the space was cramped and more hands wouldn’t help. Rex was the most experienced with emergency medicine of their little team, and Ezra thanked his stars that he’d been the first to respond to his cry for help on Chopper Base.

Rex asked for the handheld cauterizing laser, and Ezra placed it in his hand.

“I need you to keep her still, alright kid?” Rex said. “This next part might be rough.”

Ezra put his hands on Ahsoka’s shoulders in preparation, but worried he wouldn’t be able to do much if she jolted. She was strong, both physically and in the Force. That’s when it occurred to him that he wasn’t too shabby with the Force either,

Ezra kept his hands on Ahsoka’s shoulders, but instead of pressing down he closed his eyes and let his consciousness sink into hers, like he did when negotiating with a tooka or calming a loth wolf. He communicated peace and comfort, as well as a willingness to bear some of her pain.

Rex turned the cauterizer on and Ahsoka’s muscles seized up, her jaw clenching and her hands balling into tight fists. Peace, comfort, security, Ezra sent to her, and some of her pain flowed into him. Together, they bore the harsh cleansing burn of the laser, and Ahsoka managed to keep still.

Rex put the laser away and held his hand out to Ezra again. “Bacta.”

Ezra let go of Ahsoka’s shoulders. She was limp again, likely passed out from the pain. He found Rex the tub of topical bacta gel and handed it to him. Rex took it and spread some of the gloopy gel onto his fingers then, with infinite care, slowly spread it across the burned surface of Ahsoka’s wound. His touch glided over the angry wound like it was the most delicate, beautiful flower in the galaxy, like she might fade away if he was too rough.

The charred wound slowly began knitting together, the burnt brown fading to a crusted tan. The tension in Ahsoka’s unconscious features faded, and to Ezra it seemed she shifted from unconsciousness to sleep. Rex leaned back against the wall of the bunker and sighed, deep lines of stress aging his already-worn features.

“We’re past the dangerous part, now,” Rex said. “You should tell the others.”

Ezra nodded and left to find the rest of the Ghost crew. Hera beamed with pleasure and Kanan let out a sigh and a small smile. Sabine acted like she’d never been terribly worried in the first place, but Ezra knew how guilty she’d felt about her explosion not going according to plan. Zeb whooped in triumph and Chopper was, well… Chopper. Everyone’s relief was clear, but underlying it lurked an enduring anxiety. These past few months it had become too easy to think of their work as fun and exciting rather than dangerous and potentially deadly.

It took Ezra some time to track everyone down, so by the time he finished his task he decided to go back and check if Rex needed anything else. The door to the med bunker was open when he arrived, and through the opening he could see Rex sitting at Ahsoka’s side, his gaze warm and tender. Ezra cleared his throat and knocked at the side of the door.

Rex looked up. “Oh, Ezra. Care to help me clean up?”

“Sure.”

Ezra stepped inside and set about throwing away used bandages, sterilizing tools, and putting things back where they belong alongside Rex. They were just about finished when a soft moan sounded from the med unit.

Ahsoka stirred on the stretcher, and Rex looked up at her with worried, eager eyes. She looked back at him blearily and tried to sit up.

“...Rex?”

Rex gently pressed her back down. “You’ve been injured, little’un. Try not to move.”

“I remember the blast,” she croaked. “How bad is it?”

Rex frowned. “Bad enough.”

“You were bleeding like crazy on the Ghost,” Ezra said, “but luckily we got you back here in time.”

“Then… I’m going to be alright?” she asked, voice small and uncertain for the first time Ezra had ever heard.

“Yes, you should be. Probably,” Rex said, his frown growing. “The bleeding has stopped, and none of your internal organs were injured too badly. But this was much closer than it should have been.”

Her vulnerability disappeared, and she attempted a weak smile. “How close should it have been?”

“It’s not funny,” Rex said. His eyes dodged hers and his fingers curled tightly over the “501st” scratched into the vambrace he always wore.

Ahsoka’s expression softened, and she reached out to him, setting her hand on his. He looked up at her and the softness in his eyes brought a heat to Ezra’s neck.

Rex reached his other hand to Ahsoka’s cheek, his hands smearing the leftover bacta gel against her white markings. She didn’t seem to mind.

“I already lost you once, I’ll be damned if I lose you again,” he said.

“Rex, you know the risks.”

Rex’s eyes fell to his lap, and she squeezed his hand tight. 

“But I promise I’ll always do everything I can to come back,” she said, her voice smoky and soothing like Ezra sometimes liked to imagine Sabine’s, in his weaker moments.

Rex looked back up at her, his eyes dark and intense. The small room was suddenly stifling, and Ezra’s face was on fire. He was going to die. Maybe he was already dead. He coughed loudly, and Rex and Ahsoka turned to him as if surprised by his existence.

“I, uh, I guess I’ll leave you two alone, then,” Ezra said, backing slowly out of the room. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were together. I mean, Kanan explained to me about the age thing, but-”

Ahsoka dropped Rex’s hand and Rex scooted away from her, his eyes going wide.

“W-we’re not together,” he stammered.

Ahsoka’s lekku flushed a deep blue. “Yeah, just old friends. Wartime buddies.”

“Oh, ok,” Ezra said, still backing away. “Well, um, I think Hera needs me for something.”

Ahsoka opened her mouth to say something, but Ezra was out the door before she had a chance to vocalize it. The door whirred shut behind him, and he leaned back against the durasteel, his skin hot against the cool metal. Well, that was mortifying.

“Kids have such… vivid imaginations.” Ahsoka’s voice sounded from the other side of the door, and Ezra froze.

Rex chuckled, though it rang weak in Ezra’s ears. “Yeah. Crazy, to think that… You know. You and me? Crazy.”

Ezra leaned closer to the door, letting the sound from the other side seep through the crack between the panels. Being in the same room as a couple melting all over each other was a fate worse than death, but eavesdropping? Eavesdropping was one of his favorite pastimes.

“Rex, what if what Ezra said… It might be nice…”

Ezra pressed his ear harder against the cold metal.

Rex’s voice cracked. “Ahsoka-”

A firm hand yanked Ezra away from the door by his ear.

“Ow!” Green headtails bobbed in his peripheral vision. “Hera! What was that for?”

“I’m pretty sure that conversation was none of your business,” Hera said, marching him further away from the bunker.

“I just wanted to know what their deal is,” Ezra said. “Don’t you?”

Hera crossed her arms and heaved a sigh. “Sure, but that’s their business. They’ll figure it out when they’re ready. Relationships… They’re complicated. Especially when Jedi are involved.”

Her focus shifted to some distant point beyond Ezra, and Ezra bit his lip, thinking of Kanan.

“Alright, I get it,” he said. “But I hope they figure things out. They deserve to be happy.”

“Yeah,” Hera said, her attention returning to him. “Me too.”

[phoenixyfriend]

Madara and Obito... In SPACE

So the preface to this mess: I don’t know jackshit about Star Wars, so a lot of this went through friends who do know Star Wars (the primary of which does not have a tumblr).

(I have watched Episodes 7&8, and Rogue One. Of the first six movies, I remember watching maybe an hour total. I have not seen more than snatches of Clone Wars. Beyond that, nothing but fic.)

Anyway! Let’s go:

As y’all probably know by now, my favorite form of crossover is what I call “intrusive,” so... I'm enjoying the mental concept of "dump Madara on Coruscant and watch him go." (Prequels, probably.)

Does Madara know what's going on? No. Can he understand a word that's being said? No! Is he going to fight the first person to aim a weapon at him, and every person after that? Yes.

Is Madara fighting fit?

Nnnnnnnnnnnnnno, not really, he’s old as balls. This is "I was on cave life support but I'm getting back up to kick ass out of pure spite" Madara.

[Image description: A screenshot of a panel of the Naruto Manga. Uchiha Madara is old and visibly ‘decrepit,’ with spiky white hair and an amorphous black robe. He is sitting on a pale throne, and there is a scythe visible to the side. He has a speech bubble saying “I am... a ghost of the Uchiha.” End Description]

Two wrinkly old guys, staring each other down: There ain't enough room in this universe for the two of us. [Palpatine and Madara start fighting to the death]

Congrats, Palpatine! Your ass is getting kicked by a geriatric malcontent who doesn't speak any language you've ever heard or feel like literally anything in the Force. You may have Sith lightning, but do you have decades of frontline experiences and over half a century of cave-dwelling bitterness?

Both of them, simultaneously, in completely different languages: Get off my lawn, whipper-snapper.

Palpatine: Behold my mastery of the Dark Side, Foolish old man! Palpatine: [shoots lightning] Madara: Oh hey, you're like the seventeenth most dangerous person who can shoot lightning I've fought. Telekinesis? Fought that. Combat precognition? Fought that, have that, and let me tell you hwat, it doesn't help if you're opponent is just that much faster than you.

Now, I’ll take a step back and acknowledge that several people advised me that Palpatine would stand a chance against Madara, likely even win, if Madara just got hacked off of his life support and is down to one eye.

But. I want a shitpost, and also to clown on Palpatine, so Madara wins easily.

Madara also deserves to be clowned on, but the entire situation is clowning on him because he’s not in his cave anymore, and he really wants to go back to his Gedou Mazou statue.

Maybe Madara and Palpatine go Old Man Fight and then Obito just pulls a Ninja Move and kills Palpatine that way. Madara was ranting and Obito just. Ninjas behind Palpatine and slits his throat like “okay, you’re obviously evil so like... bye.”

(I just love causing "Wait what" reactions in characters that are used to having total control. Like. Have you read "Unexpected Guests"? The Bleach fic? Everything that happens in Hueco Mundo and after. That energy. I want that energy.)

Madara waves his scythe around like a cane. Obito just trails after like “Gramps, no” because it’s still pre-Sanbi, so he’s Mostly Innocent (you know, on the scale of how fucked up Obito is as a person), and just wants Madara to like. Stop.

Palpatine dies but nobody's sure what to charge Madara with since he did kind of expose a Sith? And Palpatine attacked first for [handwave] reasons?

Jedi: Well sir, in lieu of charging you with assassination of the emperor, we have decided to ask you politely to return to the elderly person's retirement home from whence you came. Please leave immediately. You are frightening the senate. Madara: [incomprehensible raving] Jedi: Yes yes, very interesting. Jedi, whispering: Does anyone know his caretaker???

Obito looks increasingly put-upon as events progress. You need Obito there to... well, not translate. Nobody can translate. But to at least poke Madara into being Slightly Less Homicidal.

Anakin seems sad about his friend dying and being evil so Obito challenges him to a spar. Madara and Obito get pulled into the Jedi Temple to help train Padawans? My first thought was "they wouldn't trust someone so obviously Weird, Crazy, and Incomprehensible around the younglings" and my second thought was "well they let Yoda do it and he's all those things so I mean? YEAH."

What if they put Madara in the bacta tank and he just freshened up like a daisy because of hand-wave Hashirama cell reasons (Blame Sir Tiddyface).

From “Decrepit and Reliant on Cave Tube Life Support” to “Will Call Down Meteors With Ease”

How many eyes does he have? Whatever’s funniest. Let’s say one Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan and one Rinnegan, for maximum chaos.

Would "half my body is missing" Obito freak out if Bacta regrew his eye? Can bacta regrow something like that? When characters lose limbs they usually just get cybernetic replacements, but  the person I spoke with said that apparently they saw somewhere that that kind of thing can grow back it just takes a really long time.

I want to imagine bacta would help Obito with the Zetsu integration.

Anyway! Yes. Have Madara help train people despite being... Madara about it. You know... kind of a dick.

(I’d put example gifs but I don’t feel up to it. Y’all know what Madara’s “weakness disgusts me” ass is like.)

Obito had to get his "these fools could never make me sweat" sass from somewhere, after all.

Do you think Obito could fight the baby Jedi that are around his age while recovering? I have no idea what their skill level is at fourteen, but I want to imagine Obito sparring the Padawans.

Obito + Zetsu + Bacta = he still needs physical therapy but he can spar again!

Madara is delighted to have a baby ninja to bully. He's too old to not bully baby ninjas, and Obito is the only baby ninja. TBH Madara just makes Obito his assistant teacher.

Obito: What are we even doing here and how do we get home? Madara: I'm still working on that. Obito: But I want to go home and see Rin and Kakashi! Madara, who was like two days away from triggering the Sanbi plan: I'm working on it.

Something sticking in my mind rn is Ahsoka&Obito, since Obito is still Baby.

I think Obito would be excited to have someone his age that thought he was Cool and Talented for being able to do Chakra Things instead of writing him off as "the dead-last." Like, Rin is friends with him, but she doesn't look up to him as someone more/differently talented.  He'd be excited to get to be "The Mysterious Cool Big Bro" for once.

I feel I also just like the idea of Anakin not knowing what to do with someone Several Years Younger that is also. Ninja Skill.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

Madara is a grouchy old man even AFTER he gets effectively de-aged via bacta dunk, for the record. He's back in his prime and the Jedi have no idea how. They're all concerned about tiddyface*. (When are people not concerned about Sir Tiddyface, really.) The mokuton is a problem.

*Sir Tiddyface is that random Hashirama face that Madara had growing out of his pecs for like... convoluted bullshit reasons.

(Madara doesn't have mokuton, but he has enough Hashirama cells that it interacted very, VERY weirdly with the bacta.)

Obito spends the intervening weeks trying to learn the local language. He's very eager. Not particularly fast. Still doing it though!

I want Obito juggling kunai as physical therapy while he's waiting for Mads to get out of the bacta tank and just gains himself the adoration of a gaggle of small baby Jedi children.

Madara comes out of the bacta tank looking like he did in his prime (which I mentioned earlier but whatever), and it absolutely incites a yelling match of an argument that draws way too much attention.

Someone tries to teach Obito how to access the Force, just to see what happens. He almost turns into a statue because the philosophy behind Force meditation is only a few steps away from Sage Mode Meditation.

Anyway, Madara smacks him with a stick like Fukasaku to make sure Obito doesn't turn into stone.

Madara grumps about the lack of paper and brushes and ink. Bitches about it until someone hits up an antique store or something to get them for him. The day before he and Obito are dispatched on a mission with someone, probably Anakin for plot reasons, Madara very publicly seals things into a scroll and then tells them that no, they can't learn it, because the Force isn't chakra so fuuinjutsu won't work for them, so There.

Obito practices some Teen Rebellion (tm) and like, tries to teach the Padawan friends he's made how to do Chakra Things... but he's so bad at explaining things that nobody can get it to work even if it were possible.

In Obito's defense, language barriers. Not in Obito's defense, he's just really bad at words sometimes.

[apenapaperandadoofus]

Can you write something in which the RFA learns about Jumin's mother, it just irks me that they don't realize the damage they unintentionally perpetuated with the way they treat him. Specially Zen, I'm sure they'll be baffled if they just knew...

YES this one is amazing actually, I'd love for them to understand him better bc they do treat my man poorly :'(

RFA finding out about Jumin's mother (mentions of emotional abuse)

After a year of being together, you and Jumin decided to move out of the penthouse and go and live at his old childhood home. You were a bit nervous about the whole change, but Jumin assured you that it was all going to be alright.

You fell in love with the house as soon as you saw it, and that night as you laid in your bedroom with Jumin, you talked about the place, and about your future.

"This is the place I'd want to raise our children." He murmured against your skin that night, and you smiled as you imagined the happy future that would await the two of you.

A few weeks later, after the two of you had gotten everything ready, you decided to do a housewarming party, and so, you invited the whole RFA.

You handed out appetisers with Jaehee by your side, as Jumin and V chatted, probably catching up after a while of not seeing each other. Yoosung was talking with Saeran, while Zen was dramatically moaning in the corner as Saeyoung played with Elly and tried to get her as close as Zen as possible.

After you were done eating, Yoosung stood up from the sofa. "Oh! Hey guys, you haven't even done a house tour yet, that's the most important thing!"

Jumin looked at Yoosung. "Hmm... a house tour? I don't see why not. Are you alright with it love?" He asked you and you nodded, standing up from your spot and grabbing Jaehee's hand.

"I'm actually pretty excited to show you all around! C'mon!" You said as you led everyone out of the living room and showed them around the rooms.

Everytime you showed the group a new room, Yoosung would let out a gasp and moan about how lucky the two of you were to have such a giant house, while Zen would scoff and say, "why do you even have these many rooms? I bet you don't even use them all."

Eventually you all made it up to the third floor, where you showed them your room and the guest rooms. As you explained to Jaehee and V what you wanted to do with one of the rooms (you wanted to build your own office and were asking for their input on the decorations) Yoosung found a room at the top of some small stairs and slowly opened it.

"Woah what's this!?" He asked as he went inside, with Zen following behind him.

"Oi, trust fund kid, why is there a room full of creepy toys?" Zen said, and then Saeyoung whistled as he looked around.

"You know this looks as if it was from those creepy horror movies where the kid dies in here or something and becomes a ghost to haunt everyone! Saeran look at these toys!"

The younger twin only rolled his eyes but did agree that it was a pretty creepy place.

You had never really seen the room before, so you were really confused too. You looked at Jumin and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Hey Jumin, did you know this was here?" You asked, and he nodded.

You exchanged a look with V, since it was pretty clear Jumin was feeling a bit uncomfortable. You cleared your throat trying to get the other guy's attention.

"Hey everyone, why don't we go downstairs now? I think lunch is ready."

Yoosung popped his head out from the room, an elephant plush on his hand. "Awww but I was actually having fun! Besides, Jumin hasn't even explained why you have this place.... wait." He looked you up and down and let out a small scream. "MC DON'T TELL ME YOU'RE PREGNANT!? SINCE WHEN, AND SO EARLY!? YOU TWO AREN'T EVEN MARRIED, I MEAN CONGRATS BU-"

Zen immediately walked out of the room and gaped at you, then he glared at Jumin.

"No way, YOU GOT MC PREGNANT? DUDE WHAT THE HELL ISN'T SHE A BIT TOO YOUNG TO-"

"OH MY GOD CAN I NAME THE BABY?!" Saeyoung screamed from behind and you sighed. Jaehee, thankfully cleared her throat and quieted the guys down.

"Why don't we listen to what MC wants to say instead of coming up with random conclusions? And Saeyoung, stop touching the toys, please we don't know if they hold a special meaning to Jumin."

You gave her a grateful smile and then looked at Jumin. "Well, I don't exactly know what this place is, but I am definetly not pregnant! We aren't ready for that yet haha. Anyways, maybe Jumin doesn't really want to talk about this place, so why don't we go back down?"

The boys let out a disappointed sigh but started leaving the room in a single line, and you were about to nag them when you felt a hand on your shoulder. You turned around and saw Jumin, who was giving you a small smile.

"It's alright love, thank you. I think I can tell them...after all they're my friends and I trust them."

Saeyoung let out a whoop and held a small duck finger puppet he had found inside.

"Yes! I can't wait to listen to what crazy things Jumin used to do as a child, I mean, this used to be your play room right?? What I don't get though is why it's in an actual basement, and the reason it feels so gloomy...you didn't murder someone in here did you!?"

"Saeyoung please." V spoke up from behind him and looked towards Jumin's direction, a worried expression on his face. "Jumin, you don't have to tell them, why don't we go and eat?"

Jumin shook his head and smiled at his friend. "It's fine. Like I said before, the RFA is a group I whole heatedly trust, and I'm alright with telling them. They did ask after all."

"What's the big deal?" Zen grunted. "This was probably just a room where he would play. That's all. Although I have to admit I'm surprised you even have a whole toy room for yourself. I didn't think you were one to play with toys."

Jumin smiled, although you could see that it was a sort of sad, forced sort of smile.

"You're correct, I wasn't the sort of kid that used to play with toys. Instead, I loved to read and investigate about things that intrigued me. I also enjoyed studying."

Zen scoffed. "Of course, so you had a whole room full of toys that you never used. Seriously, do you rich people care that little about everyone else? There must've been plenty of kids without any toys at home that would've killed for a room like this."

"Zen." You glared at him and he stopped, a guilty look appearing briefly on his face.

"I'm just saying..."

"Love, it's fine. He's right in a way." Jumin said. "These toys were a sort of...present from my mother. She didn't like that I wasn't like other kids, that I didn't really play with toys. So she decided to buy a bunch of them and give them to me, to see if I would finally play with them. I didn't really find them interesting though, so that only made her more exasperated in a way. To this day I don't really understand what would make her so angry but it did. She ended up filling the basement with toys and then she would lock me up in here for hours to try and get me to play with them."

You felt your eyes widen, and everyone in the RFA stood in silence as they listened to Jumin who was saying all of this in a really nonchalant way.

"Jumin...I didn't know. For how long would she lock you up?" You asked, and Jumin shrugged.

"Sometimes it'd be between four hours, if not more. One time she locked me for 15 hours straight."

"That's horrible!" You gasped. And Jumin caressed your cheek. "Jumin I'm, I'm so sorry. We shouldn't have...I'm sorry." You buried your face in his chest and hugged him tight.

"It's alright love, it's all in the past now. And I don't mind sharing it with the RFA. They're my friends and it's fine if they know. Now, why don't we go and eat? I'm sure you're all starving."

The whole group was suddenly startled by Jumin's sudden mood change but they nodded, unable to really say anything. You decided to leave downstairs first with V.

Yoosung quickly put the toy back in the room and shyly glanced up at Jumin, a guilty look on his face. "I'm...I'm sorry Jumin. We really shouldn't have been so nosy."

"Yeah... Yoosung's right." Saeyoung said from beside him, his tone serious. Jumin noticed that Saeyoung had a dark expression on his face, just like Saeran, as if they were suddenly remembering something. Saeyoung looked at Jumin and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry for joking about it. I'm sure it was hard...especially to tell us. Sorry for making you remember that...that horrible thing your mother used to do...no one should ever go through that."

Jumin smiled at his friend. "Like I said, it's alright. You all didn't know, and I trust you enough to tell you. I don't mind that you asked at all."

Yoosung and Saeyoung nodded, and gave Jumin encouraging smiles before following you downstairs. As Jaehee passed by she nodded at Jumin and looked as if she wanted to say something, but instead, she reluctantly grabbed his hand and squeezed.

Jumin felt himself taken aback for a bit, after all Jaehee had never really touched him like that before, and the only times she did, it was because they were shaking hands as boss and employee.

But this time, it was different. Jaehee was now touching him as a friend. Jumin felt his heart warm, happy at the thought of Jaehee seeing him as a friend and treating him as one.

She quickly let go and walked downstairs followed by Saeran who gave Jumin a nod.

Jumin looked back at the room and was about to close the door, when he noticed Zen standing stiffly behind him.

"Zen?" He asked, and the young actor only huffed, his face suddenly becoming red.

"Uhm. I...listen. This is the only time I'm saying this, and I'm not going to repeat myself alright? So pay attention. I'm...I'm sorry about the whole basement thing. Uhm, like Seven said, we shouldn't have tried to pry into your business like that."

Jumin felt the corners of his mouth twitch, but he tried his best to keep a serious expression. "Thank you Zen. To be frank, I'm surprised that you're actually apologizing for this, it wasn't really your fault."

Zen huffed. "Idiot, I'm apologizing because I made fun of the situation without knowing anything about it. And...I mean...I am also apologizing because I might've been too harsh in you all this time. Don't get me wrong, I still think you're a brat that has always had a silver spoon on his mouth, but I guess I never thought you might've dealt with some... pretty heavy stuff too." He blushed and tried to look anywhere that wasn't Jumin, who didn't know if he should laugh or just look at Zen in surprise.

"...I probably shouldn't be saying this but, I'm glad you told us. At least now I know that you're human like the rest of us and not a robot." Zen tried to joke, and Jumin smiled.

"I certainly am not, but I'm glad that your opinion towards me has changed. I still find it strange though that you would think I'm a robot, after all, currently it isn't possible to actually make a full functioning machine that behaves like a human. Actually if there was one then I'd like to know, maybe having a robot working on C&R would help us raise stocks even more than usual, I have to ask assistant Kang to-"

"Alright shut up, I get it, I get it. Anyway we should go downstairs, the rest are probably waiting for us to start lunch."

Zen quickly walked down but before he could completely leave Jumin grabbed his arm, making Zen freeze and glare at him.

"What?" He said.

Jumin chuckled. "Nothing. I'm just glad we got to understand each other better today."

Zen scoffed. "I...yeah whatever. And I mean...like I said I'm glad you told me. I know what it's like to...to have a parent force their ideas on you. I just want you to know that I understand. I-I mean, I still despise you but...listen next time just tell us something like that, don't keep it inside. You're...you're our friend after all and we do worry."

Jumin couldn't help the smirk that appeared on his face, and Zen coverrd his mouth with the back of his hand. "Yeah, yeah laugh all you want. Just don't tell anyone else that I told you this or I swear I'll never speak to you again."

Jumin chuckled. "Alright I won't."

"Good." Zen started going down the stairs.

"Hey Zen." Jumin said, making Zen sigh and look back at him with an eyebrow raised.

"You're a good friend. Thank you."

Zen felt himself blush once again and he quickly mumbled a 'you're welcome', then he quickly went downstairs.

Jumin locked the basement doors and went to the living room, where the RFA was talking. He smiled as he saw his group of friends joking around and teasing each other.

Thankfully the mood became lighter during lunch, and Jumin enjoyed talking with his friends. He was happy to be in a room full of people that he cared about deeply, and he felt even happier when you reached for his hand under the table and gave him a big smile.

The RFA behaved differently towards Jimin from that day on. It wasn't a bad different, but instead they started treating him like an actual person, that could have feelings and could joke around. From that day on Zen, Jumin and the twins definetly became closer, and even if Zen didn't want to admit it, he had really become fond of Jumin.

Eventually, you wanted to know what to do with the room, and Jumin decided to turn it into a nursery for your future kids.

"Jumin I...are you sure?" You asked him, and he nodded.

"I don't want to pass by that place and only remember the bad things. This time I want to make good memories in there, with you, and with our future family. I promise that I will try my best for all of you."

You smiled and kissed his nose. "Thank you Jumin. I'm sure that you'll be a great father, and I can't wait to start that new phase with you. Of course we have to get married first."

He chuckled and nuzzled your nose. "Yes, and I can't wait for the day where I get to call you my wife. I love you MC."

"I love you too Jumin."

[gamerwoo]

Minghao: Little Talks

Characters: Minghao x female reader

Genre/warnings: non idol au, angst, a lot of mentions of death, stuff about grieving, implied suicide at the end

Word count: 2,870

Summary: Don’t listen to a word I say. The screams all sound the same. Though the truth may vary, this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore.

a/n: this was inspired by little talks by of monsters and men!!

Seventeen Song Series

“It was built in the 1800s,” Minghao had beamed as the two of you looked up at the house before you. “The inside has been updated but it still has that vintage feel. I’m telling you, it’s our house.”

Now you wished it wasn’t. You wished you never bought this old, creaky house because you now resided in it alone. What was once a warm home now was like a cold, dark space that didn’t even feel like it belonged to you. All because Minghao was no longer there to make it feel like a home. He went out to see his friends but he never came back. His car slid into a tree on a winter day, and died before he even got to the hospital. Everything was taken from you that day.

You had just gotten home from the funeral. It was back in China and you had flown there with his friends. You didn’t mind staying in a hotel room with Joshua because at least somebody could be there to comfort you. But now as you set your suitcase down in the foyer of your house, it set in just how alone you were. You could hear the house settle as the wind continued to blow wet leaves around outside, and that only reminded you of the day you got the call about Minghao. Tears pricked the corners of your eyes.

It was early afternoon, but you decided to go upstairs to bed anyway. The stairs creaked like they always did when you walked on them, and Minghao used to always tell you that it gave the house character so you never fixed it. Now, you didn’t like how the old sound echoed through the house. It creeped you out, like you were now living in a house that hadn’t been lived in for years.

As you were getting settled into bed, your phone vibrated from where you set it to charge on the nightstand. You reached over for it and saw that it was Junhui. Besides you and Minghao’s family, his best friend was taking it the hardest. The two boys had moved here together, and now that Minghao was gone, Jun felt alone like you did. He even stayed home in China just to be with his family for a while, hoping that would help him.

Jun: Are you home already?

You: Yeah

Jun: How do you feel?

You: Alone

Jun: :(

Jun: He’s always with you, _____. You’re never alone.

You knew he was trying to comfort you, but it made you want to cry. You just wanted to hold Minghao in your arms again. You wanted to feel his lips on your forehead and see the fond look in his eyes as he chuckled at whatever dumb thing you said or did that he always found endearing. You just wanted Minghao back, not any of that ‘he’s watching over you’ crap.

You set your phone down and laid down in bed, curling up on your side. But it felt too empty. You’d never slept in that bed alone, and you didn’t like how it felt. There was no dip in the bed, no warmth, no arms wrapped around you. And it didn’t help that Minghao’s scent still lingered on his side of the bed, tricking you into thinking he could still be there.

With tear-filled eyes, you got out of bed and grabbed Minghao’s pillow. You brought your phone and your charger downstairs and plugged it back in before putting the pillow on one end of the couch. Then you laid down, covered yourself with the blanket folded over the back of the couch, and cried silently until you fell asleep, your tears staining Minghao’s pillow.

-

You woke up multiple times, but you forced yourself to stay asleep. The house groaned and creaked too often like somebody was walking through the house, and you didn’t like it. But you’d rather be asleep and not think than be awake and not only listen to the noise your empty house made, but remember that Minghao wasn’t there with you. 

It wasn’t until it was 3am that you couldn’t force yourself to sleep anymore. You weren’t tired and the noises were keeping you awake. The house was just so old that it made every creepy and creaky noise imaginable — especially the stairs that weren’t too far away from the living room. So you got up and began wandering the house, turning on all the lights just to make it a bit more bearable. You didn’t like walking around the house alone because it felt so big and so...off. It was like you never even lived there. The pictures of you and Minghao that you had around the house, though, felt like they were from another life or an alternate timeline. They were like they never happened even though it was only a few weeks ago that he was here.

You sniffles as you explored the house, seeing it as a different place even though you’d live there with Minghao for the last five months. You had previously lived together in an apartment for three years but he wanted to finally have a place to call your own. This house did feel like a home with your boyfriend in it, but now? It was unfamiliar to you. It felt cold and empty and alone, and there was nothing you could—

Warmth touched your hand. You gasped and yanked your hand upward, staring at your fingertips as they tingled. Were you going crazy and imagining things? Was it some sort of wishful thinking that somebody — specifically Minghao — would comfort you? 

You slowly put your hand back down, trying to see if you would feel it again. Sure enough, warmth encased your hand, and it was oddly comforting. It felt like when Minghao would hold your hand when you were afraid to do something like go through a haunted house on Halloween or stand on the short step ladder to put the star on top of the Christmas tree or when you’d wake up from a nightmare. 

Maybe Minghao really was with you. Maybe he knew that you were afraid without him and he was here to comfort you. Maybe when people said your loved ones were watching over you, they really were.

-

It had been two days since that weird occurrence, and you still couldn’t tell if it was just your imagination or not. Not to mention it was 3am. It was really late, so maybe that had something to do with it. 

But...what if…?

You decided that maybe you’d talk to Seungcheol about it. He invited you out that day because he wanted to make sure you were okay. However, he made sure to say he would be picking you up rather than having you meet him somewhere. You knew he’d give you his honest opinion on what was going on, even if maybe it wasn’t what you wanted to hear. 

You went for lunch at the place he knew was your favorite restaurant. He was standing outside your door to pick you up with one hand shoved in his jacket pocket while the other held his phone, his head bowed as he looked at the screen. His nose and cheeks were pink from the cold, but he still smiled when he looked up at you, and wrapped his arms around you in a hug. 

“How’ve you been?” he asked just as he pulled away.

“Okay,” you shrugged. “You could’ve waited in the car for me, y’know. It’s cold.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” he chuckled. “I’ve only been here a minute.”

The two of you drove to the restaurant while making small talk. You mostly asked each other how you’d been and how readjusting was going. Seungcheol had been seeing a counselor now because he was afraid. He was the one who invited Minghao out and asked him to meet the rest of them there. Now he’s afraid that none of his friends will show up, just like Minghao never did. It’s why he insisted on picking you up, like he did with anybody he wanted to hang out with now. However, he offered to hang out even less than he used to. He used to want to do something almost every night, but now he stayed in and just texted his friends. 

Everybody thought it was best for you to see somebody, too. You and Minghao had been together for almost four years, and all of his friends knew he planned on proposing on your four year anniversary. However, that obviously didn’t work out, and everybody was afraid to tell you. The ring was ultimately given to his parents, so you never saw it. But because they knew how much he meant to you and that you both wanted to spend your lives together, everybody thought it was best for you to talk to somebody about how you felt -- especially now that you lived alone. 

For now, you just cooped yourself up in your lonely house, which was why everyone was so worried about you.

“Can I ask you a weird question?” you asked after the small conversation about what Seungcheol had been up to since arriving back home had died down.

“You can ask me anything,” he replied, glancing at you.

You weren’t sure how to ask something so odd, but you knew if you just beat around the bush, you’d never get the question out, “Do you believe in like...ghosts and things?”

“Ghosts?” Seungcheol repeated. He stayed silent for a second as his mind seemed to start to put the pieces together. “Why, do you think…?”

“It sounds crazy, but I swear I felt someone touch my hand the other night,” you admitted, unable to look at him when you said it because you knew how insane you sounded. You sounded like a heartbroken girlfriend grasping for anything to find comfort in -- and maybe you were in some ways. “I don’t know who else that could be.”

Seungcheol sighed softly, not wanting to come off as rude, but he had to admit he didn’t believe you, “_____, you haven’t been getting much sleep since the accident. I think your mind is just playing tricks on you. Seriously, you should see a professional to cope. I can try to hook you up with--”

As Seungcheol went on about how the person he was seeing was really helping and he thought it would help you too, you zoned out. Was Seungcheol right? Were you just grasping for straws?

But you swore, it felt so real…

-

Despite the seemingly constant texts from your friends to check up and make sure you were taking care of yourself, you didn’t do much and you didn’t go out to see anybody. After seeing Seungcheol almost a week ago, you didn’t want to tell anyone else of what happened. In fact, you were worried he had told the others, which was why they were even more adamant in checking in. You didn’t want them to pity you, thinking you were going crazy with your loneliness.

Maybe you weren’t going crazy, but you definitely weren’t motivated. Taking care of yourself was something that was difficult for you to do. Showering had become a chore, changing your clothes was something you hadn’t done since getting home from your outing with Seungcheol, and eating was something you did once a day -- on a good day. It wasn’t just because of grieving, but it was also because of the house. It was all too empty and sad. You didn’t like walking around it if you didn’t have to, so you chose not to.

During the week, you couldn’t help but feel like there was somebody watching you. You wondered if it was Minghao, but you kept reminding yourself of what Seungcheol had said. It was all in your head. ...Right? But you also knew that even if it was him, he’d be hurt to see the state you were in. You’d had your share of bad days where he’d do his best to try to get you out of bed and do something, but sometimes you just had really bad days where you couldn’t do the smallest things.

‘It’s killing me to see you this way, love,’ you faintly heard his voice say, like a memory in the back of your head.

Was it just a memory…?

You’d decided to stay in your bedroom instead of the couch. It was harder to hear the sounds the house made at night, but it didn’t mean you still didn’t hear them. The sounds of the stairs creaking at night kept you up when you tried to sleep, making you think someone was walking around. That whole week, you hardly slept at night -- but you didn’t sleep much during the day, either. The winter wind howling against the windows and causing the house to creak never seemed to become background noise like it had when Minghao was by your side.

You pulled the covers up to your nose during another sleepless night, ears listening to the sounds of the creaking stairs that were muffled by the closed bedroom door. It sounded like weight shifting as someone ascended the stairs, but nobody ever padded down the hall or opened the bedroom door. It was just the old house settling.

‘It’s the house telling you to close your eyes.’

It was something Minghao had said when the two of you first moved in and you had yet to adjust to the new noises and creaks your house made. You were afraid of the odd sounds that sounded creepy and made the house seem like it was alive, but Minghao tried to reassure you they were comforting sounds to not be afraid of.

However, this time when you heard it, it was like his soft voice was reminding you once again. It was still quiet, almost like it was all in your head, but it wasn’t just the memory of him saying it.

You felt warmth on your back, going all down the backside of your body. But this time, it didn’t startle you like it did when you felt it on your hand. This time, it felt comforting. Maybe it was from the lack of sleep, or maybe it was because it was the middle of the night and being awake so late would make anyone a little loopy. But you found yourself letting your heavy eyelids close, and you drifted off to a peaceful sleep for the first time in a long time.

-

If you really were hearing Minghao, you didn’t tell anyone. You knew they would all say what Seungcheol had, and you were already struggling against yourself to know if you were crazy or not. Some days, you were sure you knew what you were feeling and hearing. You were positive he was with you, trying to have little talks with you. Others, you convinced yourself you were crazy. Seungcheol’s words would ring in your head, and you could almost hear your other friends voicing their concern for your mental health. 

The days where you believed Minghao was with you, you’d speak aloud. It was like you were trying to talk to him, wherever he was. Maybe he couldn’t actually hear you, but you didn’t care. Sometimes, you swore you could hear him reply to you, but you’d look back on it a different day and tell yourself it was just wishful thinking. You never did truly know where you stood on if you were wrong or right.

There was one thing you were sure of: you weren’t getting any better. Whether you were crazy or not, the days never got any easier. You found it harder and harder to even reply to your friends, asking yourself what the point was anyway. Minghao was gone, leaving behind faint traces of himself in your house that slowly slipped away like faded memories. And with him completely gone, you couldn’t handle it. Little things you held onto like the smell of his pillow and the clothes still in the closet were becoming more and more faint, leaving you feeling more alone than you’d ever felt.

As you laid in bed, on top of the covers this time, you stared up at the ceiling. The edges of your vision warped and were slowly eaten up by black fog that started to consume everything you saw.

‘Just let me go, _____,’ you swore you heard Minghao’s voice, much clearer than any other time you’d thought you heard it. But you knew, even now, it might’ve been from your current state. Maybe it wasn’t real. But you wanted to believe it was; that he was on the other side. ‘I promise, we’ll meet again. But let me go for now.’

“Hao…” you croaked out quietly, your voice being met with the creaking of the house as the wind whipped the bare tree branches around outside “Please...wait for me…”

With a faint smile on your face, your eyes slowly closed, knowing that once you’d fallen asleep, you’d see your love once more.

[fallen420]

Rebel Spy - Chapter 15: The  Goodbye

Masterlist

warning: mandalorian spoilers 

One of the imperial pilots holds a blaster to the doctor that we saw on the hologram head. We need him alive because of what he knows. Seeing this I join Din in their cockpit.

“Stay back rebel scum,” says the one holding the blaster. Din and I both hold up our blasters higher.

“Easy, pal. Okay?” says the other imp. “I’m not with him. We can work something out-” before he can even finish his thought he’s getting shot in the head by the other guy.

“Alright drop the blaster,” I say

“No, no you listen to me. This is a top-tier target of the New Republic. This is a clone engineer. And if they find out that he’s dead because of you, you’re gonna wish you never left Alderaan.”

“How do you know that?”

“I see who you are, you’re Aurora Janren. Rebel Spy. Rebel Commander. Everyone in the galaxy knows who you are. You wanna know what else I saw? I saw your planet destroyed. I was on the death star.”

“What a coincidence so was I.” Din looks at me for a moment before turning his attention back to the imp.

He laughs, “Oh that’s right I remember. You and your friend were. We should have killed you both when we had the chance but destroying your plant was a small price to pay to rid the galaxy of terrorism.” Hearing enough of him calling my family and friends terrorist I aim my blaster and shoot him in the head.

The doctor holds the side of his head. His ear probably hurts from being too close to the blast. I turn to walk out but Din grabs my arm. “Why didn’t you tell me? You said you were on a rebel base when it happened.”

“I didn’t know how to explain at the time that Darth Vader and captured me and my friend and decided to blow up our home planet to get us to talk. It's not something I like to remember.” I pull my arm out of his grip and I go back to Bobas ship.

-

We pick up Bo and Koska from a cantina. Bo tells us that the person she lost the darksaber to is Moff Gideon which is probably the reason she agreed to help us in the first place.

We make a plan to get onto the cruiser using the imperial ship we stole from the imps that the doctor was on. Bo, Koska, and Fennec will go in first taking out the stormtroopers and make they’re way to the cockpit while Din and I go find Grogu.

-

Din and I walk down the ramp of the ship. Both of us have our blasters out. Din also brought the spear that he got just in case we need it. We walk through the empty imperial cruiser. Well, it's not actually empty, it just feels like this is. The feeling is eerie.

We turn down a hallway. Hearing two stormtroopers make their way towards us Din grabs my wrist pulling us into a little corridor. The troopers run-pass without seeing us. Din squeezes my wrist before letting go and checking to see if the coast is clear. Once he’s sure it is we continue on our way to find the kid.

We turn down a hallway for what feels like the millionth time. But this time we see doors open.

“No, no!” Din yells as he puts the splicer into the control panel to close it. The doors start to close but then it stops as two hands grab the doors stopping them. These two hands belong to the same things that took the kid.

It pries the door opens and we are bet with its red eyes. It punches both Din. With him having the beskar protecting him he slides across the room and hits the wall without getting knocked out. Me having none of that when the thing tosses me off to the side and I hit the wall I almost instantly get knocked out.

I’m not sure how long I’m out for but it can’t be for long because Din is still fighting the thing and is very much losing. I feel my head throbbing and warmblood coming down the side of my face.

Din is on his knees tries backing away from the thing throwing charges at it. The more he backs away the closer he gets to me. Using everything I have, which is mostly adrenaline, I stand up grabbing the spear from Dins back and driving it into the thing’s neck. Sparks fly and I push it farther causing it to fall to the ground.

Din runs back to the control panel opening the hull door so the rest get sucked into space. He runs back to me taking the spear out of my hand. He wipes the blood still dripping down my face then gently holds the back of my head, “Are you okay cyar'ika?” he says almost frantic.

I take a deep breath, “I’ve been worse trust me. Let’s just find Grogu and get the hell out of here.” This he agrees and once again we run throw these halls.

-

Using the spear Din takes out the stormtrooper guarding the cell with ease. Using the splicer Din opens the door to the cell. Inside is Grogu sitting on the bench with little binders to prevent him from using the force and Gideon with the darksaber pointed right at the kid.

The kid coos when he sees us and raises his hands a little.

“Drop the blaster,” Gideon says, “Slowly.” He moves the saber closer to Grogu. Doing as he says we slowly put our blasters on the ground. I ignore the throbbing in my head as I do it. “Now kick them over to me.” Again we do as we are told. “Very nice.”

“Give me the kid.”

“The kid is just fine where he is.” Gideon waves the saber above his head, “Memorizing isn’t it? Used to belong to Bo-Katan. Yes, I know you’re traveling with Bo-Katan. A friendly piece of advice, assume that I know everything. Like the fact that your wrist launcher has fired its one and only salvo, and you,” he looks at me, “Seem to be suffering from a concussion.”

“Where is this going?” I ask annoyed.

“This is where it's going. I’m guessing that Bo-Katan and her boarding party have arrived at the bridge, seeking me or, more accurately, this. But I’m not there and I imagine that they’ve killed everyone on the bridge, being the murderous savages that they are. And know they’re being to panic because she wants this. Do you know why? Because it brings power. Whoever wields this sword has the right to lay claim to the Mandalorian throne.”

“You keep it,” Din says, “I just want the kid.”

“Very well,” Gideon retracts the saber, “I’ve already got what I want from him. His blood. All I wanted to study was his blood. This child is gifted and has properties that have the potential to bring order back to the galaxy. I see you two have a bond with him. Take him but you will leave my ship immediately and we will go our separate ways.

Din and I carefully walk to the kid as Gideon moves out of our way. Before Din can pick him up I hear the darksaber ignite. I duck knowing that that weapon will cut me in half with ease. The saber hits Din’s jetpack. Din starts to back out the door blocking all the hits Gideon gives him. They take their fight out into the hallway,

Already bent down I start to undo the binders on the kid’s cuffs, “Hey Grogu.” he coos and for a second I smile knowing he’s back with us. Once the binders are off I hold him close to me.

Once I get back out into the hallway Din has the spear to Gideon's neck who is now on the ground. “Put him in binders lets go.

-

When we get to the bridge everyone is there. Din tries to give the saber to Bo but she refuses. Since she lost it and didn’t win it back in a battle she can’t rightfully take it.

Din tries to argue with her about it but before she can Fennec detects something entering the ship but it doesn’t show any lifeforms.

“You’re about to face off with the dark troopers,” Gideon says, “You had your hands full with one. Let’s see how you do against a platoon.” We’ve gone through too much today to just give up now. I put the kid in the safest place possible we seal the blast doors and we get into position.

The dark troopers starting punching at the door. Each punch makes a bigger dent. I start to get nervous not having any idea how we are going to face them all. With every punch, I lose a little bit of hope that we will make it out of here alive. But when all hope is lost, I hear a ship jump out of hyperspace.

“An X-wing?” I say.

Bo tries to get the ship to identify itself. The pilot doesn’t say anything as it lands on the cruiser. But I do notice that the kid's ears perk up and something tells me that whoever is this is going to save our asses.

The punching stops and the air gets tense again.

“Why did they stop?” Fennec asks.

“A Jedi’s on board,” I say walking over to where Din is looking at the cameras I don’t bother explaining myself and I watch to see what happens.

Bo is also looking at the cameras on the other control panel, “She’s right. It’s a Jedi.” There’s only so many Jedi left and I met a few in my day so something tells me this one will be a friend. On the screens, we watch as the Jedi goes cut through the dark troopers with ease. The kid climbs up on the chair and watches with me and Din.

The Jedi makes its way through all of them and gets to our door. The kid whines and Din picks up him. Din and I walk to the front “Open the doors.” No one moves, “I said open the doors.”

“Are you crazy?” Fennec says.

Din sets the kid in the chair and opens the doors.

Everyone’s eyes are on the door as the Jedi walks into the room. I see his green lightsaber and his gloved hand and I know exactly who this is.

He takes off the dark hood revealing a face I feel as if I just saw him yesterday but also a lifetime ago.

“Luke?” I say almost in disbelief.

“Aurora,” he nods, “It’s good to see you again.”

I walk towards him giving him and hug and pulling away to say, “I haven’t seen you since Endor. Leia, how is she?”

Leia was my best friend on Alderaan. She grew up in the palace and I basically did with her. Her father was a huge part of the Rebellion making us become apart of it once we got old enough. We went on missions he sent us on together. Then when the ghost crew helped out me and Leia, I stayed with them feeling like I could do more but after everything on Lothal and the Battle of Scarif I got separated from them. Leia and I ended up getting the plans for the death star then we got captured by Vader. I met Luke when he helped to rescue us, we fought alongside each other all the way up until Endor. And now I’m here.

“She’s good. Really good.”

“I miss her.”

Luke nods before motioning towards Grogu, “I take it this is the one?” I go back to stand next to Din

“Yes, everywhere I go there seem to be Jedi.” No literally Din never even heard of the Jedi before meeting the kid but somehow I befriend three? What are the chances?

The kid looks up at Din and me.

“He doesn’t want to go with you.”

“He wants your permission,” Luke says, “He is strong with the force but talent without training is nothing. I will give my life to protect the child but he will not be safe until he masters his abilities.

Din picks up Grogu and walks back over to me, “Hey go on. That's who you belong with. He’s one of your kind. Aurora knows him you’ll be safe. We’ll see you again. I promise”

I hold on to Din’s arm trying my best to hold back my tears. Grogu holds his hand up to Din’s helmet wanting to see his dad’s face before we don’t see him for who knows how long.

Dins lifts his hand up to his helmet is he gonna take it off?

The helmet is gone and in front of me is the beautiful face of the man I love. The tears fall freely down my face not being able to hold any more emotions in.

My eyes start at his brown hair. The curly, fluffy, brown hair. I've run my hands through it in the dark but stars this is better.

His brown eyes met mine. There’s a little wrinkle in the corner of his eyes I had a feeling he had. I spot the nose I love and kissed so much. And the soft lips I see form a smile for the first time.

I hold my hand to his cheek. Touching it in the dark is one thing but seeing myself touch it is a whole different feeling.

I place a kiss on his lips then one on his nose, “So handsome,” I smile a teary smile.

Both of us turn our attention back on Grogu who is staring at us. I lean my head on Din’s shoulder as I watch as Din also reaches a hand to his chin like he’s checking to see if he’s real.

“Alright pal, it’s time to go.”

I brush the kid’s ear, “It’s okay he’s a good man, don’t be afraid.”

Din places Grogu on the floor but the kid holds on tight to Din's leg. Hearing beeps I look to see the blue and white astromech droid R2-D2. This droid and I have been through a lot together first meeting on Alderaan. Lots of stories I don’t need to get into right now.

The droid looks at me and beeps excitedly, I smile, “Hey Artoo.”

The kid being curious walks up to Artoo the charismatic droid beeps excitedly too and starts to move around. It's a cute sight to see. But the happiness I feel seeing old friends again comes to a stop when Luke picks up Grogu and I realize it's actually happening the kid is going away. Din and I completed the mission we found his people. Luckily it's someone I trust with my life considering the number of times he saves it but its hurts knowing I might never see the closest thing I’ll have to a son again.

“May the force be with you.”

I nod back at Luke. They turn around back into the elevator and with that, they’re gone.

END OF SEASON 2

taglist: @tortles​

[ollieofthebeholder]

leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

Tumblr tag || Also on AO3

Chapter 44: Tim

Tim can pinpoint the exact moment he knows he’s screwed. Later, when he takes the time to think about it, he’ll be able to trace the progress of things and see all the signs, from his fear for them to his instinctive desire to reach out for them when he’s scared to the quiet comfort he feels when they’re together. He’ll remember that weird knot of jealousy he felt the very first morning when he saw the Primes cuddling and realize that it wasn’t a general I-wish-I-had-someone-to-love-me thing, it was specific to who was involved. He’ll figure out that he’s been quietly in love with Martin probably since the moment he saw him trying to apologize and look contrite with an armful of spaniel doing its level best to lick his face off with its tail going like a windmill, and that if there’s a moment he can point to later and say is the one where he completely fell for Jon it’s probably the soft look on his face as he tucked a quilt around Martin’s sleeping form.

But that’s all going to be in retrospect. The moment he knows comes a lot later and is a lot easier to detect.

After an exceptionally extended lunch that only ends when the afternoon crowd starts shuffling in, they part, Melanie with a promise to come by the Archives on Monday, Georgie with an offer to stop by and tell her story after she’s put her next episode of “What the Ghost?” to bed, Sasha with a cryptic reference to some sort of appointment and a promise to see them later. They discover what she means later that night when the doorbell rings and Tim opens it to find her and the Primes on their doorstep. Neither of them seem surprised to learn that Elias is forcing Jon on his grand tour, but they don’t seem pleased about it either. Jon Prime warns Jon, over and over again, to be careful. Tim would almost expect Jon to get exasperated, but he doesn’t. They actually have a pretty pleasant evening; Jon Prime cooks for them while they take turns telling him about dealing with Elias. He does seem pleased to hear Jon has reconnected with Georgie, and he and Martin Prime make the others laugh by sharing stories of dealing with their Melanie and Georgie. They pull out some board games after dinner, and while they all agree that with at minimum three people at the table who can literally access the sum total of human knowledge at a whim, Trivial Pursuit is right out, Monopoly is fair game.

Charlie comes over Saturday while his grandmother hosts one of her bridge nights. He’s extremely distressed to learn that Jon is going away again already, to the point that he throws himself into Jon’s arms and starts to cry. It takes all three of them the better part of an hour to get him calmed down, and it ends with Charlie curled on Jon’s lap, the two of them sandwiched between Martin and Tim. Tim looks at Charlie’s tear-streaked face and the heartsick look in Jon’s eyes and the tender concern in Martin’s, and he tightens his arms around them and tucks his chin over Jon’s head and hopes.

It rains pretty much all day on Sunday. Martin makes breakfast and brings it into the bedroom on a tray, and they sit close together and eat quietly and don’t talk about what’s bothering them. Finally, in desperation, Tim reaches under the nightstand on his side of the bed and fishes out a book he’s been meaning to read for years. He wraps his arm around Jon and manages to get a hand on Martin’s shoulder; Martin, evidently taking the hint, scoots closer and does the same, and Tim begins reading out loud. It transpires that the book is one of Martin’s childhood favorites, but Jon’s never read it before and is both delighted at the novelty and enraptured by the story. They spend the whole day curled up together, rain lashing at the windows, underneath the apple-leaf quilt Tim’s grandmother made him, heads touching as they take turns reading aloud. It’s a stolen moment of peace in a world gone crazy and Tim tucks it away in his memory to cherish later when he needs it.

He wakes up in the middle of the night and rolls onto his side, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. The first thing he’s able to make out is Martin, doing the exact same thing he is—just watching. Jon, curled into a knot between them, is still asleep, but from the twisted, pained look on his face, it’s not an easy slumber.

Tim meets Martin’s eyes over Jon’s head and reads there the same worries and fears he has himself. Jon’s nightmares are bad. They’ve known that from the beginning, when Martin was recovering from the worms and they were all camping out in Tim’s living room, and they’ve only grown worse as time goes on. The screaming terrors from reliving what he went through with Orsinov have stopped…for now…but Tim knows in his heart of hearts that what’s making it easier these days is him and Martin bracketing Jon and doing their best to physically shield Jon from the Eye. There’s no real stopping it, but they can at least help.

But now Jon is going to Beijing, and God knows where after that, and he’s going alone. They won’t be able to help him with the nightmares if he’s not there to protect. And that’s besides the fact that Tim knows they’re both trying not to consider the possibility of some other monster trying to take Jon away from them when they’re not there to protect him. It doesn’t even have to be a supernatural one. As easy as it is to blame every horrible thing that happens on one of the Fears, there are ordinary people that are perfectly capable of being horrible on their own, and it would be just Jon’s luck to be caught up in something at random and get hurt, or worse. And they won’t be there to help. Again.

“I guess we could just…go with him,” Tim says, keeping his voice low. “Whether Elias wants us to or not.”

Martin shakes his head slowly. “I still don’t have a passport. And…I don’t think we can leave Sasha alone in the Archives. You can go, maybe.”

“I’m not leaving you behind.” Tim sighs and gently tucks a strand of hair back from Jon’s forehead. His skin is damp and clammy. “It’s a mess. He might be safer away from the Archives than we are, but…I worry, you know?”

“I know. I do, too.” Martin closes his eyes for a moment. “We just got him back. And we’ve got months to the Unknowing.”

Tim hesitates. He’s been thinking about that. “I don’t know that we do, actually. I—I don’t think it’s time-sensitive. I mean, I don’t think they have to wait for a certain time or anything. I think they just have to be…ready.”

“How will we know when they’re ready?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what they’re waiting for.” Tim stares down at Jon’s face. “I can’t decide if I’m afraid they’ll be ready before he gets back—”

“Or hoping,” Martin completes. “Because if the Unknowing happens while he’s overseas…at least he won’t be caught up in it. At least they’ll leave him alone.” He’s quiet for a moment. “At least it’s one thing we can protect him from.”

“God. I just…want to wrap him in bubble wrap and a blanket and fight off the world with a stick. Or at least keep him right here with us. I wish we could just stay here and let the world sort itself out for a change. Why do we have to be the ones doing all this?”

Martin reaches over and brushes Tim’s cheek with his fingertips, ever so lightly. “Anything worth having is worth fighting for,” he says softly.

Tim reaches across Jon’s sleeping form and pulls Martin closer, but he doesn’t say anything further.

The alarm goes off not long after; Jon is taking an early-morning flight by virtue of it being the cheapest available option, and he’s got to be there close to three hours early to check in. It’s too early for any of them to be properly hungry, but Martin makes tea while Jon takes a shower and Tim…sits around feeling useless.

As if sensing that, Martin glances over his shoulder at Tim. “Does he have any statements with him?”

“Oh, God, yeah, let me check.” Tim heads over to where Jon’s bag is. It’s a simple messenger bag he’s probably had since university, if not longer, frayed in spots and festooned with patches and pins. Jon never brought this to the Institute, instead using a professional faux-leather laptop bag, which isn’t surprising; it’d be pretty hard for him to sell the “serious academic” persona if he’s walking around advertising that he listens to Sinner’s Gin.

He opens the bag and looks through it. Jon’s packed a couple changes of clothes, some toiletries, a couple of paperback books, and of course the tape recorder, his personal one. But no statements.

Quietly, Tim goes over to the end table and opens the drawer. Inside are two tapes and a slim folder. He takes a deep breath and relaxes his hold on his powers, bracing for the colors to pop up. It’s surprisingly easier to filter out the Eye and see the beneath colors than usual—whatever’s in the folder glows orange around the edges but green in the middle, and one of the tapes just seems to have indigo stripes through the green rather than them  being layered on top of each other. Like the Eye isn’t hiding the truth from him anymore, like it’s letting him really See.

He files that information away to deal with after he’s got some caffeine in him and nudges the Stranger tape out of the way; it’s probably the one he and Martin listened to, so it’s no good, it’s already been used. The other one is pure, blinding green—an Eye statement that Gertrude recorded, which is unusual. Tim seals off his ability and reaches for the tape. It takes him three tries to pick it up without dropping it—his hands are shaking, he guesses because he’s upset about Jon leaving—but he finally carries it and the folder over to tuck them into Jon’s bag, then seal it up again.

“He didn’t,” he tells Martin, heading back into the kitchen. Martin sighs and hands him a cup of tea. “But you never took back the ones you brought home after that whole thing with the Not-Diana, so I put them in his bag.”

“God, I can’t believe I forgot about that,” Martin murmurs. “Still, it’s been a hell of a week.”

Tim pauses, cup halfway to his lips. “God, how has it only been a week?”

Jon comes into the kitchen, hair still damp from the shower; it’s down to about his collar now and takes a while to dry. Martin silently hands him a cup of tea, too. None of them speak while they drink. It’s as if these last few minutes at home are too precious, or too heavy, for words. At last, though, Jon glances at the kitchen clock and swallows hard. “Time to go.”

Pure devastation flashes through Martin’s eyes, but he simply nods and takes the cups from him and Tim to put them in the sink. Tim worries at his lip as he studies Jon. “You’ve got everything? Passport, wallet, phone?”

A faint smile tugs at Jon’s lips briefly. He reaches into his pockets and produces the requisite items—a burgundy passport in near-pristine condition, a black billfold that’s seen better days, and the new phone they picked up for him Saturday morning that he’s gone to a lot of trouble to set up. “Charger’s in my bag.”

“Okay. Okay.” Tim takes a deep breath. “I guess that’s it, then.”

They take Tim’s car, not because Jon minds them driving his car but because Tim’s has a column shift and a bench seat in the front, which means Jon can sit between Tim and Martin for the journey. Traffic isn’t too bad this early in the morning, at least not until they get closer to the airport, but Jon is apparently far from the only person traveling today, so there’s a bit of a snarl before Tim is able to navigate up to Terminal Three.

He hesitates at an intersection and looks at Jon. “Do you want me to drop the two of you off at the door or—”

“No. There’s time,” Jon says softly. “You can park first. Then you’ll both know where it is.”

There’s more to that than what Jon is saying, but Tim doesn’t question it. Instead he finds a space in the short-term lot for Terminal Three, and if it’s one of the farthest spots from the terminal doors, well, there might not be a lot of people here dropping off or picking up at this time of day, but who knows what the situation will be by the time they go to leave? Jon slides out of the car and doesn’t take Tim’s arm or Martin’s, but they walk close enough together that it doesn’t really matter.

The doors open up into an enormous space. Martin, who’s clearly never flown before, looks around him with wide eyes, and Jon shrinks back slightly. Tim gently ushers them to one side of the door, where there are a couple of benches, and heads off to the departure boards to make sure they’re in the right terminal. Once he’s located Jon’s flight on the boards (on time, unsurprising for an early-morning flight), he makes his way back to where he left them. Jon has edged closer to Martin and Martin has an arm wrapped around Jon’s shoulders, and both of them look both terrified and heartsick. Tim looks at them, unobserved for the moment, and he’s struck by the urge to drag them both home, shut the door of their bedroom, draw the curtains, and stay there until the Unknowing collapses on its own. As badly as he wants revenge, as much as he wants to hit back at the thing that murdered his brother, he’ll give that up in a heartbeat if it’s the only way to keep Jon and Martin safe.

The penny drops then, bounces off just the right pegs, lands squarely in the right cup and oh.

Tim stands stock-still for a moment, stunned by the swift and sudden revelation. In retrospect, he doesn’t know why it surprises him so much; it’s not like he hasn’t known he’s polyamorous since he was fifteen, and God knows he’s wanted to kiss both of them more times than he can count. But, somehow, he’s been convincing himself they’re just friends, as close as brothers maybe, but nothing more than that. And, well, maybe they are. It’s more than that on Tim’s end, though.

He’s in love with Jon and Martin both, and he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he loses either of them. And Jon’s about to go haring off across the world alone, and Martin keeps accidentally coming to the attention of things that want to hurt or kill him, and oh, God, Tim is so incredibly screwed.

He shakes himself out of the stupor. He can deal with this later. Or never, as the case may be, but he promises himself he’ll deal with it later and heads over to the other two. Jon sees him and pulls, with obvious effort, away from Martin. “Is this the right terminal, or—?”

“No, you’re good. Your check-in counter is down this way.” Tim indicates the large sign for the airline Jon will be flying on the first leg of his journey—he’ll apparently be changing planes in Copenhagen.

They stay at Jon’s side all the way up to the check-in counter, where he provides his identification and credit card to the rather stiff old man behind the counter, who keeps sneering at the three of them in a way that makes Tim very much want to hit him. The man asks rather more questions than Tim is used to, even for an international flight, and he’s about to step in and explode when the man finally, finally hands Jon his boarding pass and moves on to the next person waiting.

“How did he manage to make ‘have a good trip’ sound like a curse?” Jon says under his breath as they turn towards the security checkpoint.

Martin snorts. “It’s like ‘may you live in interesting times.’”

“I’ll pass. After this, I would like my times to be as un-interesting and quiet as possible, thank you.” Jon smiles, but it melts away almost instantly.

There’s virtually no wait at the security checkpoint, Tim notices, or at least not compared to how it would be later in the day. Jon will be able to breeze through it in a matter of minutes. And according to the signs posted everywhere in huge letters, Tim and Martin won’t be able to accompany him. Martin stares at one of the signs boldly declaring TICKETED PASSENGERS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT for a long minute. His face is implacable, but Tim knows what’s behind it, because he’s feeling it too.

Jon looks at the queue, and the security gates, and the signs telling him to remove his shoes and have his ticket and passport ready. He turns to face Tim and Martin, opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, then suddenly gives a small, choked sob and lunges forward, clutching them both by the front of their shirts and burying his face in the narrow dip where their shoulders touch.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he whispers.

Tim wraps one arm around Jon and the other around Martin; Martin does the same, and the three of them cling to one another tightly. He can feel Jon trembling and hear Martin’s breath hitching in his chest and he almost dares to let himself hope, but he pushes the thought out of his mind. He can’t let himself think that, not now, or he’ll drive himself crazy with wanting and fear. And if he’s wrong, if they don’t…it’s better to assume they don’t and possibly be surprised later than believe they do and almost certainly be crushed.

There’s soft music coming from somewhere, a gentle and soothing melody in a choked and broken voice, and it takes Tim a second to realize that it’s Martin, singing quietly so that just Tim and Jon can hear him. It’s a plaintive melody and the lyrics are a little melancholy, but the line when I return united we will be does at least warm Tim’s chest, just a little.

Jon gives a deep, shuddering breath and pulls back, almost reluctantly. “I—I’d best—I shouldn’t miss the flight.”

“We’ll wait,” Tim says, his voice unexpectedly hoarse. “Until—until you’re through.”

Jon nods. “I’ll let you know when I get to the gate, and when I board.”

“And when you land,” Martin insists. “I don’t care what time it is.”

“I will. I promise. I—” Jon swallows hard, looking from Tim to Martin and back, then steps forward and hugs Martin tightly. Martin hugs him back, and they murmur something to one another before Jon eases back, turns, and hugs Tim just as fiercely.

Tim hugs him back. He’s still too thin, feels too frail, somehow. He’s barely recovered from the hell Orsinov put him through and now they’re sending him off on his own, and Tim wants to keep him here, but he knows he can’t.

“Please look after him,” he whispers in Tim’s ear.

“I will,” Tim promises. “You be careful, you hear me?”

“I hear you. And I’ll be as careful as I can. I promise.” Jon squeezes him briefly, then slowly, almost reluctantly, lets go. He takes a deep breath, slips out of his shoes, and heads over to join the queue.

He doesn’t say goodbye. Tim’s strangely relieved by that.

True to their promise, Tim and Martin stay where they are, side by side, watching as Jon inches ever closer to the metal detectors and security checkpoint. When Jon places bag and shoes in a bin to go on the conveyor belt, Martin reaches over without looking and grabs Tim’s hand. Tim grips his tightly in return, and they only…watch.

They can barely see him on the other side of the security gate, but for a brief moment, Tim sees Jon hesitate and look over his shoulder. Tim waves, Martin does too, and Jon raises his hand in farewell before slowly turning and walking away.

Martin lets go of Tim’s hand, but before Tim has time to regret its absence, he puts his arm around Tim’s shoulders and pull him closer. Tim slides his arm around Martin’s waist. They don’t need to say anything; they just turn and walk away.

People mostly ignore them, although one or two give them inscrutable looks. Tim doesn’t know if they think they’re a couple and disapprove or think they’re mourning something or what, but he decides he doesn’t care as long as they leave him alone. They make their way slowly back to Tim’s car, but don’t get in; Tim leans against the back of it, and Martin joins him, arms folded as they look up at the still-black sky.

“What song was that?” Tim finally asks. “That you were—before he left.”

Martin rubs a hand over his face. “It’s called ‘The Leaving of Liverpool.’ I think. It’s—it’s the song my dad always sang the night before he left, when he was putting me to bed.” He doesn’t say anything for a moment, then adds softly, “I fell asleep.”

“What?” Tim turns to look at Martin, frowning.

“The night he—we had this whole routine at bedtime when he was about to leave for the fishing run, and one of them was him singing that song to me. I sang along on the chorus, once I learned it, which didn’t take long.” Martin isn’t looking at Tim, his eyes still on the sky, but Tim can see the glint of tears in them. “Normally I’d settle down and close my eyes after he left, but that last time…I was tired. I don’t remember why, but I fell asleep before he got to the last verse, so I wasn’t awake for the whole song.” He turns to look at Tim. “And then he never came back. I thought it was my fault. I thought—it’s stupid, I know it’s stupid, but at first I thought it was like a-a magic charm or something, and I broke the ritual and that’s why he didn’t come back. I thought something had happened to him and—”

“Oh, Martin.” Tim reaches over and pulls Martin into a tight hug. Martin hugs him back, and Tim can feel the tears spilling over. “It’s not your fault. And—and Jon’s going to be okay. He will. He’ll be back soon.”

“I know,” Martin says softly. “It’s just…”

Tim doesn’t need Martin to finish. “I know.”

They don’t go anywhere. They probably should, probably don’t need to sit in the parking lot, but they do. They lean against Tim’s car and watch the stars, occasionally punctuated by the lights of planes taking off or landing. Jon texts them both to let them know he’s through customs, and then that he’s at his gate. Still they don’t leave, and still they don’t speak.

Finally, finally, the text comes to both of their phones. [Just took my seat on the plane. Have to turn my phone off now. Will text you when I arrive.]

Martin’s hands shake as he sends the reply. Tim waits for it to pop up on his own phone. [Have a safe flight.]

Jon’s next text comes almost at the same instant; he must have been typing it to send while Martin was trying to reply himself. Three simple words. Their meaning can’t be clearer. Still, Tim has to stare at them for a long moment.

[Miss you already.]

Slowly, Tim raises his head to look at Martin and finds Martin staring back with a look that’s probably identical to the one on Tim’s face. He’s pale, his eyes red-rimmed, but he’s not crying. They’re probably both past tears at this point. It’s just fear and longing and the ache of missing a part of themselves.

Tim fishes out his keys and holds them up; Martin nods, and they both climb into the car. When Tim turns the ignition on, the entire dashboard flashes for a moment—there’s a short in the electrical system somewhere; he’s been meaning to get it looked at, but he doesn’t drive much these days and this doesn’t happen every time, just occasionally—and the radio kicks on of its own volition. A reedy American tenor belts out the last line of the first verse. Already I’m so lonesome I could die…

Tim scowls at the radio. “It should be illegal to play this song within ten miles of a major airport.”

Martin gives a soft, slightly broken laugh. “Breakfast?”

“I don’t know that I can eat, but we can give it a shot.”

“Yeah, but…” Martin gives Tim a sideways look. “I promised I’d look after you.”

Tim grins and tries, once again, to kill the sudden flare of hope in his chest. “Same.”

“God, he’s such a worrywart.” Martin holds up a hand. “I know, I know, pot, kettle, et cetera. Want to call Sasha and see if she’s up?”

“No, I don’t want to die today.” Tim puts the car in gear and backs out of the space. “Come on. There have to be a few places open this early that won’t be too expensive for us to not eat at.”

Martin reaches over and puts his hand over Tim’s, not squeezing or holding, just resting it there. Tim slips his thumb over the back of Martin’s hand and rubs it gently, feeling it catch against the very, very slight roughness of Martin’s skin. The scars from the worms have faded as much as they ever will, mere pale circles against his skin, but there’s one on his right pinkie finger where the worm very nearly went all the way through, and there’s an ever-so-faint ridging there that Tim keeps rubbing at, over and over, as if he can erase the hurt and the marks from Martin’s skin.

It’s not until they get to the café that it occurs to Tim that what they’ve just done is exactly what the Primes did in those early days when they were still trying to conceal their relationship. It seems too dangerous to consider the ramifications of that, though, so Tim settles for sliding into the same side of the booth as Martin and leaning against his shoulder, needing some of his strength and warmth and softness.

Martin lets him.

[classic80sand90smovieloves2]

Meeting and Dating Jack Goodman

(Not my gif)(Requested by anonymous)

(Most of these can probably go for both normal jack and ghost jack but the hcs center around him being amongst the undead. I wouldn’t mind writing some hcs specifically for human Jack though)

- You first met Jack in highschool. Initially, you were friends with David who was in a few of your classes, but soon enough David introduced you to Jack and the three of you became a trio.

- Jack fell for you the moment he saw you, or at least couldn’t help but find you incredibly attractive. You probably thought he was just nervous when you first met with the way he was stumbling over his words and acting so awkward. Gosh, David had a field day with him after you left.

- To Jack, you’re completely out of his league and there is no chance that you would be interested in him. But he has to try. Too bad his “trying” isn’t nearly as obvious as he would like it to be.

- The two of you gradually spend more time together, going from only hanging out once in a while; and only with David, to hanging out for hours on your own. Every time you’re together he tries to psychically project his feelings into your mind.

- Its nearly a year later that he actually tries to put the moves on you but at that point you’re such good friends that you don't even notice what he’s trying to do. Every proposition of a date is just him asking to hang out. Every romantic compliment or pickup line results in you laughing and telling him to stop messing around. He doesn’t know how much more of it he can take.

- When the three of you graduated highschool, you’d decided that you’d take a year off and vacation in Italy. The boys wanted to go backpacking so they agreed to meet you there. Of course, they never really did, did they?

- You were beside yourself when you heard about what happened. Here you were, in the middle of a foreign country supposed to be having the time of your life and instead, you find out that one of your best friends is killed by an animal and that the other is recovering in a London hospital. Jack was dead, it was like the idea wouldn’t register in your mind. Jack was dead and you’d never see him again.

“Y/n came to my funeral. Gosh, she really looked torn up,” Jack smiled at David almost sheepishly. “Do you think now would be a bad time to tell her how I feel?”

- It was a few days after his funeral that you first saw him again. You though that you were going crazy, that your grief had gotten the better of you and you were having a serious lapse in your sanity. But it all seemed far too real, too detailed to be a hallucination.

- After hearing about what happened, you’d cancelled the rest of your trip and went back home. You’d holed yourself up in your room for a week before you finally forced yourself to go outside, though it was only to attend Jacks funeral.

- You were curled up on your bed, still dressed in your funeral attire and feeling utterly miserable as you fumbled with a book you’d borrowed from the boy for your plane ride to Italy. The room was quiet, save for you sniffling, ...up until a sudden voice rang out.

“You never did get the chance to give me that back.”

- Your eyes widened as you clumsily sat up and turned around. There he was, standing in the doorway to your bedroom; torn and bloodied but there. You watched as he walked inside the room, smiling at you as he took a seat on the edge of your bed. Feeling the mattress sink under his weight was what fully convinced you that you weren’t just going mad.

- Your mouth went completely dry as you looked at him. You couldn’t think of anything to say even as you tried your hardest. All you could manage to get out was a “how” and a clumsy sounding “what”.

“How ya doin y/n/n? Wonderful service wasn’t it. I was glad to see you there. I think my parents were too, they always liked you,” he said sweetly though the words held a bitter air. “You know, I was thinking about sticking around here a bit. You said I was always welcome and, well, being around the dead all the time is really starting to bum me out. I much prefer your company.

- You inched closer to him, placing a tentative hand on his cleaner shoulder before moving it to touch his undamaged cheek. His skin was cold but you could touch it as though he were really there. Letting out a sob, you lunged forward, smushing you’re lips against his cheek and pressing your forehead to the side of his head.

“Well don't get all mushy on me now.” 

- True to his word, he did stay, albeit in intervals. Every now and again, he’d disappear for a while but he always came back and was seemingly content and relieved to be around you.

- Its not very long after he comes back into your life that he finally confesses his feelings. He figures that, hey, he’s dead, what else has he got to lose? So one night, just as you’re drifting off to sleep, he enters your room and kneels beside your bed, delicately shaking you awake.

“Y/n/n? I know its late but I’ve been sitting up and thinking. Thinking about my life, all the things that happened, everything I should have done. I realized that I didn’t do much at all. I mean; I should have met more people, went out more, slept around more.” he chuckled softly though it sounded more like a scoff than anything else. 

“But you see, I can live with all of that, or, well... nevermind! The point is, that there was one thing that I should have done that I never did, something that I can’t just let go of. …I should have kissed you Y/n. I should have kissed you and never stopped. I was an idiot, I was an idiot because I never told you how I felt when I had the chance. Well now I’m a lousy mess of ghostly meat but I’m going to finally tell you.” He paused, taking a deep breath and trying to calm his nerves. Even in death, he was a coward. 

“Y/n. I love you. I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you and never once has that love gone away; …not even in death. I know this isn’t very orthodox and that I’m not a very nice looking corpse either. …And maybe this whole thing is insane and I never should have said anything at all!” He spoke as though he finally realized how bizarre the situation was, an nervous edge in his voice. He paused and collected himself before speaking again. “…but I did say it, so now we’re just gonna have to move on from here.” 

- None of his dreams could have ever prepared him for the sheer shock and joy that he felt when you told him that you liked him too. 

“So you’re saying we could have been together all of this time?” You couldn’t help but laugh at the look on his face. With a tired smile, you beckoned him into your bed and laid back once again to go to sleep, this time with him by your side. 

-  You had your first date in your house, cuddled up on your couch and watching movies. It was just like any other day yet different at the same time. It felt right. 

- The two of you shared your first kiss that same day when you were saying goodnight to each other. You were going to go to bed and he wanted to stay up a bit longer so he walked you to your bedroom. You both paused at the door before he leant down and kissed you gently, saying goodnight with a smile as you retreated into the room. 

- And so, the dead joined the living... in her small studio apartment. 

- Jack is sort of an indoor boyfriend so to speak. He’s a ghost; and a mangled one at that, so you can’t exactly be seen with him out in public. 

- He’s a bit clingy. He’s pretty much always alone when you’re not around so he hates when you have to leave him.

- I hope you don't mind gore because his isn’t going away anytime soon. 

- Please let him kiss you. Please. He is literally begging you to makeout with him.

“I know the face is a bit messy but my lips are still perfectly intact.”

- Humor is sort of a defense mechanism for him. Whenever he’s nervous or doesn’t know what to say; or how to say what he wants to say, he’ll just keep cracking jokes and trying to make you laugh in an effort to ease the tension.

- Getting surprise visits. He’ll most definitely scare you with the way he just pops up wherever you are, though its hard to stay mad at him when he says that he missed you. 

- Sudden butt pinches and grabs. He puts his hands behind his back whenever you turn to look at him, glancing away and whistling before looking at you with a little devilish smile. 

- Jaw kisses. He loves them and he loves giving them though he uses his for evil. 

- Cuddling? He loves it though it may be a bit difficult with his …injuries. You'll usually lay side by side and hold hands while you sleep or you’ll clutch his hand  to your chest and snuggle into that. 

- You can’t exactly go on dates so you’ll have to find things to do at home, unless you want to go somewhere very secluded. 

- Picnics in the woods. 

- Late night walks. You’re pretty much only able to go out with him when it’s dark, otherwise you’ll have to pretend he’s not there which certainly puts a damper on things. 

- Curling up on the couch together with some hot chocolate and a corny sitcom. 

- Giving him some goddamn toast. There's not much to eat in the spirit world and god does he miss your cooking. Would you mind making him something?

- Talking to a corpse is boring. To him, you’re a much better conversationalist, even if you think you're a bad one. 

- He has a bad habit of speaking when he shouldn't or saying the wrong thing. Nowadays, there’s not too many instances where that's a problem though it’s certainly earned him a few glares from you. 

- Lovingly calling him meatloaf and chopped liver. He …tolerates it; only because you look at him so sweetly when you do so. 

- Is he legally obligated to say your name; at least, twice during every conversation of yours? At this point, you’re honestly pretty sure he is. He doesn’t use nicknames though he doesn’t have anything against them, he just prefers saying your real name. 

- He has kind eyes, doesn’t he? It seems like whenever you turn to him, he’s always gazing down at you with this sincere look of absolute adoration. It makes your heart skip a beat every time. 

- Jack is a bit naive when it comes to girls or, rather, girls he’s in love with. He always believes what you say and falls for your devilish little tricks. 

- David definitely teased him relentlessly for his crush on you and was betting on the two of you getting together. The circumstances aren’t the best but at least it happened, right? 

- He’s a fan of old literature and makes references to it whenever he can. If he finds out you haven't read his favorite novel, he will literally sit you down and force you to.  

- Teasing compliments. They aren’t the most romantic but hey, they still make you smile. 

 “Baby there is nothing mediocre about your body.”

- He likes sitting in your bathroom while you take a shower so that the two of you can talk. He also likes doing it so he can watch you shower but you like to focus on his interest in what you have to say, it’s much sweeter. 

-  He’s a horny boy, even in death. Are ghost boners a thing? Well he’s certainly gonna find out. 

- Being welcomed home by a smooth jazz record and him patiently awaiting your arrival with a somewhat suggestive grin.

- Every time you say something all lovey dovey to him, he swears his heart nearly starts beating again. He never knows what to say back, he usually just turns red and laughs all shyly.  

- He makes a big deal out of your birthdays, he doesn’t let you just forget about them or treat them like any other day. You’re alive! You’re another whole year older! …Fuck! …You’re aging and you’re going to keep aging.... He’ll try not to think about that part. 

- Getting to hear little bits of gossip. No one can see him so he’s certainly witnessed some interesting things, interesting things he likes to tell you about. 

- Nosy ghosty. He snoops around your stuff constantly. He’s practically memorized your entire house down to a T. 

- Having to accept that there’s a lot of supernatural things in the world. Werewolves, ghosts, and who knows what else; they’re all real and your life has just been completely normal up until now. 

- Getting to have all of your questions about death answered though some of the more painful things, he’ll keep a secret just because he doesn’t want to make you upset. 

- I feel as though his looks can depend on his mood and also the type of spiritual day it is. You know how some days are considered more spiritual than others? Well on those days, he’s normal, looking very chipper and with a lot of energy. On bad days, he’s practically a skeleton with a few flaps of dried up skin. 

- He usually hides away during his bad days, not wanting you to see him like that and be scared away. You reassure him that you’ll love him no matter what but a part of you is sort of thankful. You don’t know if you want to see him all horribly decomposed. 

- He does get jealous. I mean, he’s a ghost, you're human. Plus, he was a loser in life, why wouldn’t you pick the attractive living guy whose hitting on you over him. 

- He uses humor to pretend like he isn't bothered by the guys actions but will call him an asshole or something otherwise insulting later when you're alone together. Like out of nowhere, he’ll make some offhanded comment about the guy and you’ll realize he’s still mad about it. You just agree with him and give him a kiss. 

- A part of him; a selfish, disgusting part of him wishes that you were dead. That something would happen to you, something quick and painless but something. On one hand, he wants you to live the life that he couldn't. But he also can’t help but want you with him, encased in eternity as beautiful as always and just how he remembers you. 

- He used to be more of a coward but now that he’s dead, he really has nothing to fear, does he? The only thing he’s worried about is your wellbeing. 

- You’re very good at changing his mind and convincing him to do things. He defends himself by saying its because he likes you so much and that you should consider yourself lucky that he does. 

- He’s not stupid, maybe a bit cowardly at times but not stupid, if something doesn't feel right he’s getting the hell out of there and making sure he takes you right along with him. As much as he’d love an equally undead girlfriend, he knows you aren’t ready to go and shouldn’t be going. 

- He’s quite protective of you. He hates even thinking about you being hurt in any way. He literally can’t even hear about it in hypothetical situations. 

- He cant stand seeing you cry. He never knows what to say or do. He always yearns to comfort you but god, how does he do that? He’ll usually just rub your back and let you cry into his shoulder, trying his best to crack some carefully selected jokes in an attempt to make you feel better. 

- He can be annoyingly persistent when he wants something. He wont let up so unless you’ve got real thick skin and the patience of a saint. You’ll wind up doing what he asks just to get him off your case. If you don’t do it for him, he’ll wind up doing it for himself anyways so don’t sweat it too much.

- There's constant short lived bickering between the two of you. It’s just how he is. He’s a smartass, especially when something bothering him and highly argumentative when something doesn’t sit right with him. You don’t have all that many real fights though. 

- He apologizes when he’s in the wrong or when he feels that he could have handled things better, shyly and jokingly pleading with you to not try and exorcise him while pressing little kisses across your face. 

- He doesn't say he loves you very often. He deems it a very serious thing to say and saying it makes him nervous so he keeps it reserved for special moments. 

- Well, he’s not going anywhere anytime soon so I hope you’re ready for a long relationship. 

[rabble-dabble]

The Cancer King

Well, here’s an Evil Karkat to go with Evil John.

So, let’s set the stage. How does Karkat become the villain? That’s honestly a pretty tricky question. Contrary to John, most of Karkat’s arc comes from him growing to shed or suppress any potential flaws that would make him an outright villain, so it’s a lot harder to make him turn into a villain on his own. So, we’ll have to give him that push.

So, after The Condescension dies, she gets sent to the dreambubbles. She’s both frustrated to be defeated and relieved to no longer be under Lord English’s thumb, so she decides to start planning her rebound.

She traverses the dreambubbles searching for her most competent and loyal minions from her old empire, building an army with promises of a new eternal empire that will span the multiverse. Once she’s confident in the size of her armada, she travels to doomed timelines and begins sucking the life force out of thousands of still living players, using the energy to resurrect herself and return to full strength. Unfortunately for her, she’s a Thief of Life, not a Rogue of Life. So, to resurrect her army, she’s forced to mind control a Rogue of Life and have them steal the life force from enough people to resurrect her entire army. With her preparations complete, The Condescension launches her invasion on Earth C.

Still starts by ambushing Karkat during some diplomatic meeting, detecting that he was the weak link, seeing as he’s the weakest non-immortal out of all the God-Tiers and his death would likely demoralize and horrify his friends. But, as she prepares his execution, the Condescension notices his blood color. Her thoughts immediately flicker back to the Signless and a particularly evil idea settles into her mind. The Signless had been the single biggest pain in her ass before Lord English, as his influence managed to haunt her even after his death. So, now’s the chance to get some payback.

She decided she would try to corrupt Karkat into everything the Signless would’ve despised. Transform him into her ruthless right hand man. 

Initially, the torture doesn’t work, so The Condesce decides to switch gears. After her forces manage to capture Terezi, Condy gives an ultimatum. Serve or she dies. Karkat is forced to work for her. Still, Karkat actively works against her. He uses his position in her ranks to leak information to his friends. The Condescension full expected this and keeps giving him false information to leak. She then leverages the resulting casualties, complimenting him on his “victory” and wonders just how long they’ll continue to trust him. “It’s been a few months since they lost you, guppy. Maybe they think you broke.”

The Condescension continues to get inside his head. She reads his mind to see all of his little insecurities and she leans into each and every one of them. All of his past mistakes and failings. For example, she offers to mind control Terezi into loving him as a “reward”. When he gets disgusted, she brings up the time he tried to schedule how much time she could spend with him and Dave without her permission. “Doesn’t matter how you get her so long as you get her. Sounds like past you had his priorities in order." 

She gives him ideas in his sleep, plaguing his mind with nightmares where his friends horrifically die from following his advice or while trying to save him. It inspires him to make a public speech denouncing his friends so they’ll stop trying to save him. After that, she fills his sleep with dreams of him dutifully serving by her side, forcing him to question why exactly he denounced his friends. 

His friends, naturally, don’t buy it. They know Karkat and they’re going to bust their asses off to save him. It’s only a matter of time before John kicks down the door to his room and scoops him off his feet in a hug.

As the captured Condescension is being dragged away, she smugly thanks Karkat for being so helpful with her regime. Karkat hunches up, but John grabs his hand behind his back. It helps keep his glare from wavering. 

Karkat is still noticably distant, even after the Condescension is executed. Naturally, his friends try to comfort him. Terezi is there to reassure him, assuming he went through the same kind of torture she did, while Jane and Jade are able to relate to being forced to serve the Condesce. However, they’re not quite able to get through. Karkat is convinced that he was actually beginning to genuinely abandon his friends and he’s too stuborn to "pawn his problems off on someone else”, in his words. Still, they’re not stupid. Everyone is able to tell the Condesce did something to him and that it’s still bothering him.

Karkat is haunted, day in and out, by nightmares of him abandoning his friends. He keeps berating himself, chastising himself for trying to abandon them after everything they went through together. His self-hatred is creeping into his skull like a poison and because he refuses to talk about it, it keeps getting worse.

No matter how much Karkat tells himself that it’s not true, that he’d never abandon his friends or hurt them, the nightmares linger.

So, Karkat decides to prove to himself that he’s loyal to his friends and would never actually abandon them. Since she was able to come back from the dead before, she could logically do it again. After stewing the problem over a bit, he goes to John with an idea. John is going to use his Retcon powers to help Karkat become God-Tier. That way, he can destroy The Condescension’s ghost in the dream bubbles so she can’t come back. John figures that this is Karkat’s way of facing his trauma directly and agrees. Mostly because he’s been spitballing with his friends about what Karkat’s problem might be and Rose brought the idea up.

John and Karkat travel back in time so that Karkat can use his old quest bed. It’s not like Past Karkat was going to use it anyway, so nothing really changes. The same Knight of Blood rules as in the Lord Egbert timeline apply, meaning that Karkat has all the powers of everyone that he’s friends with. 

John and Karkat hunt down HIC and manage to destroy her, but not before she manages one last sickening taunt. With her final breath before she fades away, The Condesce claims that Karkat denounced his friends of his own free will. John tells her off, but Karkat confirms it. Before John can press on the issue, Karkat teleports away. John tries to chase after him, but he isn’t able to find him. Karkat has a close enough relation to Void (via his old friendship with Equius) that John can’t just will himself to Karkat’s location. Karkat could feasibly be anywhere in Paradox Space.

While John is out looking for him, Karkat is mulling over his past mistakes. The Condescension’s words ringing in his head. He believes that, somehow, he choose to betray his friends. And as he keeps teleporting throughout Paradox Space, witnessing every mistake he ever made, that rabbit hole goes deeper. He wonders if maybe he tried a little harder, Eridan wouldn’t have gone crazy. Maybe if he cared a little more, Nepeta and Equius wouldn’t have died. If he was less selfish, none of this would have happened. 

It’s an ugly thought. He knows that. He knows he did the best he could. His friends won’t let him forget that. But a dark part of his mind won’t let it rest.

Then, Karkat realizes that he can fix this. 

He has the power to do simply travel back and prevent their deaths. He can save them. He can save everyone.

It backfires spectacularly.

The resulting future ends up becoming a horrific destopia. Sense Eridan never died, he ended up joining up with The Condescension in this timeline, acting as her double agent and letting her win. From there, HIC is able to discover a means of absorbing Lord English’s power, allowing herself to become the supreme ruler of Paradox Space. 

John manages to avoid this timeline, as his Retcon Powers protect him from changes in the timeline, so he doesn’t notice as he’s still looking for Karkat. 

Karkat is naturally horrified by the future he’s created. All of his friends are eitger dead or enslaved and everyone, everywhere, lives under the boot of a bloodparched despot. With John nowhere to be found, he can only imagine tge worst. He teleports away to the Furthest Ring.

He just floats there in the empty void for awhile, mentally digesting everything. Everything that has led up to this point, all the mistakes that he made and all the things he could’ve done, play on a loop on his mind. No matter what he does, he somehow fucks it up. And when he tries to fix those mistakes, he ends up making everything worse. In his mind, he’s the problem. And, as such, it’s his job to fix everything. 

Wracked with guilt, Karkat has to not only fix this timeline, but he has to make sure he can never mess anything up again.

Then Karkat realizes something. If The Condescension was somehow able to absorb the powers of Lord English, then he logically should be able to as well. Hell, he could go one step beyond. He could become powerful enough to gain control over the story itself. He’d just have to figure out the method.

After doing some poking around Paradox Space, Karkat discovers how the Condescension became so powerful. The HIC consumed the lifeforce of trillions of people, draining entire timelines of life until she was in the same league as Lord English. Once she became powerful enough to affect him, she sucked the lifeforce out of him, absorbing his powers and becoming just as powerful as the Lord of Time. Since then, she’s been hunting down and sucking the life force out of Lords and Muses across Paradox Space. 

Even with how desperate he is, Karkat isn’t quite willing to go that far. So, he hatches a new plan.

He seeks out some Doomed God-Tier versions of Terezi, Aradia, and Rose, seeing as they’re really good at digging up lore. Through them, he’s able to discover a secret. Absorbing the lifeforce of God-Tiers grants more power then just absorbing the countless mortals the Condesce did. So, if Karkat stays focused on God-Tiers, he can avoid having to commit the same level of Genocide as the HIC. Of course, this means that he’d have to find a way to absorb powers to begin with. His first bet is too just befriend a version of Meenah but no dice. The Condescension went out of her way to completely annihilate any alternate versions of her to avoid this exact problem. So, Karkat has to resort to finding Life artifacts and weapons that grant the same effect.

Karkat quickly gathers up a team of Doomed God-Tier versions of his friends, promosing them something on exchange for their help. (IE. a version of Gamzee who killed all his friends on Lord English’s orders, but was then abandoned for it. Apparently, English was bored and wanted to test how loyal Gamzee was. Karkat offers him the chance to resurrect and apologize to all of his dead friends) The only person he can’t get to join him is John. He just can’t find a version of John willing to join him and most try to talk him down after seeing how far he’s starting to fall.

He then sends his friends to various ends of Paradox Space. They’re all tasked with finding Life artifacts, gathering up God-Tiers for Karkat to absorb, and distracting the HIC’s forces to keep them from finding him.

…They’re also there for him. On the rare times he can bring all of his friends together, he sees them interact. He sees them bond and forgive in eays they never could in his timeline. It reminds him of what he could have had. What he’ll never have. Because he failed.

It keeps him going. Everytime he sees everyone together, he becomes more convinced that this is the right thing to do.

Karkat gets his moniker from Gamzee. At one point, Gamzee comes across a group of former Lord English worshippers, who are forlorn at the loss of their master. To rally them together, Gamzee tells them of a new messiah.

“A WICKED, RAGING MESSIAH WHO DREAMS OF A UTOPIA OF MIRTH AND BEAUTY. a brother who captivates all who listen and guides gods from afar. THE CAPRICIOUS CANCER KING! leader of the lost lambs the Lord betrayed. AND DESTROYER OF THE WICKED FISH BITCH HERETIC WHO DESTROYED OUR WHIMSY!”

Gamzee leads them as a surrogate army against tge Condescension’s forces, all whilst they shout the praises of the Cancer King.

At one point, Karkat hears rumors about a version of John who has started a revolution against the Condescension on her home turf. Karkat goes to investigate and finds out that it’s John from the main timeline. At some point, he went back to the main timeline to get help, only to find the dystopia that replaced it. John managed to free some of his living friends from mind control. Sense Jane was among them, she could start reviving the rest. With them, he’s been leading a revolt against the Condescension.

Karkat explains his plan… much to John’s horror. Karkat’s plan is effectively mass murder, but Karkat brushes this off as necessary. Besides, he can undo them once he gets control of the narrative.

Karkat teleports away before John can talk sense into him, using his powers to keep John distracted long enough to escape.

Eventually, Karkat absorbs enough power to match The Condescension and he soundly defeats her, absorbing her lifeforce. But it’s nit enough to give him full control of the narrative. Hellbent on undoing his mistakes, Karkat doubles down on absorbing the life force of God-Tiers. He will become strong enough to undo all the damage he’s done, he has no choice now. And the only thing that can stop Karkat before he steps over the edge is John Egbert, with his ragtag group of friends.

There will be an epic showdown. But who wins? I’ll leave that up to you.

[star-spangledstud]

A Deadly Gift

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x enhanced(female!)reader

Summary: You and Bucky play your yearly game of hide and seek.

Word count: 3400-ish.

Warnings: +18 SMUT (don’t read if you’re a minor), blood (knife play, gun play), gore, rough sex at its finest, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it!)

A/N: this is a lot. I don’t know where it came from, but here it is. Might be a little (or a lot) AU for Bucky’s character, but whatever. I’m crazy and this was hella fun to write. 

Your heart was beating so fast you were convinced you were gonna have a fucking heart attack. You’d been on the run for at least four hours now, trying your hardest to keep as much distance between you and him as humanly possible. The only problem? He was known as the Winter Soldier, a man who wouldn’t stop until he completed his missions whatever the cost and right now, the only thing on his mind was your immediate capture.

Sure, he wasn’t under HYDRA’s mind control anymore, but he still possessed the deadly qualities of his former alter ego. He was incredibly fast on his feet, insanely stealthy and extremely deadly, and no matter how far away from him you thought you might’ve gotten, the chances of him sneaking up on you remained, lingering like a mist that clouded your common sense and rational thinking processes.

Bucky Barnes had been gracious enough to give you a fairly large lead, allowing you a two-hour head start before he’d come chasing after you with everything he had. You didn’t waste any time after the clock began to run, slamming the door shut in his face before you took off in a blind sprint for the woods behind the house you rented just for the occasion. That was so long ago that it was starting to get dark. This was an advantage for him with his heightened sight, hearing, and sense of smell, but not for you. You weren’t a super soldier, nor were you Daredevil. 

You purposefully didn’t put on perfume or body lotion and you hadn’t washed your hair in a few days, afraid your signature scent would be a dead giveaway to your whereabouts. Over the years, you’d grown smarter, making the game harder for him each time it was his turn. Still, it thrilled him to chase you down, and you were a great location scout.

You sat still for a moment, straining your ears in an attempt to focus on the sound of his combat boots on the soil or the gears in his metal arm twisting and turning with low hums. It was hard for you, nearly impossible to distinguish the sound of animals rustling between the trees and a deadly assassin on the hunt for you. You knew had to slow down your breathing to a controlled speed as fast as possible, afraid he might be able to hear the pounding against your chest in the deafening silence of the northern forest. You took five minutes, that was all you allowed yourself to calm down and take a breather. He could be miles off for all you knew, but he could be watching you as well from just beyond your view, waiting to pounce until he’d driven you into a corner like a lion did on a wounded animal. It made you dizzy. 

When you thought back on how your relationship started, you couldn’t help but snort in irony. You hated him at first, treated him like the enemy even after he’d been accepted into the team with open arms because of Steve. You didn’t trust him, even after he went to Wakanda to get that mind control shit extracted from his brain. You didn’t like the way he would sneak up on you when you were making pancakes for breakfast, or the way he’d look at you for minutes on end without blinking during three-hour long mission debriefings. 

You were sick of the way he’d stare at you while you were running miles on the treadmill, always looking at your ass in tight Gymshark leggings but never saying a word to you. So, you decided to confront him, to tell him to fuck right off and mind his own goddamn business or else.  

It only took for him to say one word before you were on your knees in the changing room, sloppily sucking on and licking down his beautiful cock until he came down your throat. It wasn’t the word itself that made you so angry you wanted him to fuck the rage out of you. It was the way he smirked slyly when he said it. Sorry. 

It took you two nearly a year for your relationship status to change from fuckbuddies to boyfriend and girlfriend. Everybody knew it coming except for you, you’d never been interested in a relationship before him. You didn’t know what it was about him that drew you in, but he was like a drug you’d never be able to quit. He was everything you’d ever wanted in a man and everything you didn’t know you wanted. If there was such a thing as soulmates, you were convinced he was yours. 

Of course, the former iron fist of HYDRA came with baggage. He’d wake up in the middle of the night screaming sometimes, drenched in his own sweat. One time, he’d tried to murder you in your sleep. Still, you stuck with him, offering him a hand to hold and a shoulder to cry on when he needed it. He loved you, you could tell from the way he’d glance at you while you checked your phone first thing in the morning and the way he cherished and worshiped your entire body from the tips of your toes to the crown of your head. He was gentle with you, making sure to always put your needs above his own, a true 1940′s gentleman. He held doors open for you, held an umbrella over your head when it rained, carried you to bed when you were too damn tired to move another muscle after sparring and he’d take you out to dinner at least twice a week. He was sweet, soft when you were alone with him and he cared about you so much it nearly gave you cold feet once. Bucky Barnes was almost too sweet. 

He knew you were close by. He’d heard your exasperated breathing an hour ago to his east, after which he decided to grant himself a break. He didn’t want the game to end so soon. The more he allowed you to think you were in control, the more worked up you’d be. The wetter you’d be for him. 

He sniffed the air after being seated on a dead tree trunk in the middle of nowhere for almost thirty minutes. Your scent, naturally sweet and powdery, stuck to the leaves you’d swatted out of your face with your hand while trying to run through them. No perfume indeed, he applauded you for that, but he could still smell you in the sea of pine needles and dirt. You were getting further away from him, almost too far, so he began to jog, placing his feet on the ground so softly he looked and sounded like a ghost. Right now, he was your biggest nightmare. 

You panted harshly, leaning against a tree with your hands on your knees. You hadn’t heard a single sound except for a howling owl in the past hour and were confident in the distance you managed to create between you and James. You knew it couldn’t last forever, that he’d find you sooner or later, but it was that exact knowledge that caused your belly to tighten and your heart rate to speed up to an almost uncontrollable speed. You clenched your thighs together and smiled in the darkness while you explored your surroundings, already excited at the thought of it being your turn next time. You were thinking the Amazon, or maybe Egypt. Not a lot of cover in the desert, though, but that was his problem.

He knew he had you right where he wanted you when he heard the sickening crunch of a twig breaking under the ball of your left foot. He had better senses than you, but you clouded him nearly as much as he did you, causing him too to step on a twig, its sound ringing through the trees until it reached your heaving form.

“Shit,” you cursed under your breath, earning a loud laugh to escape his lips. The sound echoed through the trees, making a chill run along the entirety of your spine. 

“Come on out, baby doll,” he taunted, “There’s nowhere left to run.” 

You could hear the sound of a blade unsheathing and quickly followed his action, grabbing your knife from your boot and gripping it tightly in your hand as a form of protection. He was stomping now, not giving a flying fuck whether you heard him or not. The game was up, he was going to win. He won every time, although this was the longest you’d ever gone without being caught. 

“I’m going to find you,” he continued, “and you won’t like what happens to you when I do.” 

You took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from your brow. Then, you launched yourself at him. He chuckled when he saw you emerge from between the trees, easily blocking the first jab you threw at him. The black mask that covered his mouth obscured his voice somewhat, but you could still hear him laughing loud and clear. He toyed with you when he easily tossed his knife in the air, catching in his other hand without even looking at where it landed. 

Fucking hell, that turned you on. 

He grabbed your arm and twisted it, forcing you down on your knees with the push of his foot on your back before the fight had even had a chance to get started. 

“Told you I’d find you,” he smirked. 

You turned your head around and spat in his face, saliva dripping down his cheek and wetting the mask, “fuck you.”

It didn’t take much for you to break free from his grasp. After all, he was the one who taught you how to do it. You hooked your leg under his own, sending him flying to the dirt. He landed on his back with a thud, but before you could run away again, he was already back on his feet. The knife in his hand found its way in your shoulder, sinking deep into you. You cried out in pain, screaming when he pulled it back out in a fluid motion before he tossed it to the side. If he needed another knife, he’d take yours. 

“I said, fuck you!” You shouted again, kicking back your leg into his left thigh. 

“Oh baby,” he said quietly as he wiped the spit from his cheek, “that’s exactly what I intend to do to you.”

You ran away, but he was much faster. In less than ten seconds, he had you on the ground with a thud, gasping for air while he began to drag you back to your previous spot by your ankles. You screamed and tried to kick him, but he pulled your legs apart, holding them in a grip so tight you felt like you could never break free. Instead, you twisted your torso in a half sit-up, taking your knife and plunging it into his calf. It pierced his skin and flesh, but he didn’t say a word, even as you retrieved it with a twist that sent blood gushing down his pant leg.

He grabbed your knees next, pulling you closer to him with a hard yank. You flailed your legs and punched him wherever you could hit him, but he only held you tighter, creating marks on your skin that would surely bruise even when he heard his bones crack under the force of your fists connecting with his body. 

You slashed his arm, breaking the fabric of his tactile suit and exposing his skin. The blade connected with his flesh and drew blood that dripped down his arm and into the soil beneath. You momentarily managed to break from his grasp and punched him in the face, sending it flying to the side. Another punch, bruising his cheekbone and another, splitting his lip underneath the mask. He took the knife from you with a growl and tossed it into the darkness, adrenaline overpowering the feeling of his burning leg.

You grabbed his hair and yanked his head back, allowing you to free yourself from his hold. Instead of running, you got up to fight, wiping dirt from your cheek before hurling your fist at him. He barely managed to dodge the attack, grabbing your arm as it flew passed his face and twisted it painfully behind your back.

You were on the floor again in under a minute. 

“You like hurting me, don’tcha?” he grinned, straddling your waist and grabbing hold of your wrists. 

You looked up at him through damp lashes, unaware of the tears that threatened to fall from your eyes. You hardly recognized him hovering above you, eyes so black they looked like obsidian. You tried to wiggle out from underneath him, a moan escaping your lips when his hard cock came in contact with your clothed core.

“Bucky,” you mewled, shutting your eyes, “shit.” 

“Don’t fucking call me that,” he ordered, “Or I’ll shoot you in the face.”

He began to pull a gun from the waistband of his trousers and proceeded to cock the safety and pointed it straight at your face. You kicked your legs wildly, straining against his metal hand around your wrists with all your might. He didn’t budge, not even as you stared down the barrel of the Glock. The fear of dying to the hands of the man you loved caused your entire body to vibrate. 

“Sarge,” you bucked your hips into his, “Sergeant fucking Barnes.” 

He pushed the gun into your temple, cold iron chilling you to the bone. Then, he lowered his head, pressing a rough kiss to your open mouth through his mask. You could taste the fabric on your tongue, mixed with blood, his blood.

“Shut the fuck up,” he barked, “this is your fault, not mine. So easy to find. You’re gonna have to blindfold me next time. Maybe then it’ll finally take some effort.”

“I’ll gouge your eyes out with my nails instead,” you snarled. 

His mouth met yours again, but instead of kissing him back like before, you headbutted him. Your forehead connected with his nose, sending blood squirting in your eyes and face. He cursed this time, almost removing his grip from your wrists out of reflex, but ignored the burning sensation in his nose and the heat of streaming blood down his face.

He hovered over you for a moment, taking in the sight of you, lying under him with his blood coating your scowling face. Your hair, long and messy, had fallen from the ribbon you’d used to secure it in place and your chest heaved up and down. With a grunt, he placed the gun back in his waistband with the safety back on. You ripped off his mask, crashing your lips to his in a kiss so heated you could set the forest aflame. Teeth, lips, and tongues collided painfully, eliciting a moan from the back of your throat so wonderful Bucky’s dick twitched in his pants.

He grabbed the nearly forgotten butterfly knife hidden inside his shoe and used it to slice open the front of your t-shirt. You had goosebumps all over your skin when the blade dragged across your naked skin. With the flick of his wrist, Bucky sliced your bra from your chest, exposing your already peaking nipples to his wanting eyes. The knife quickly disappeared from view again, but the thought of him pulling it out again had you squirming under him in anticipation. He undid your pants next, forcing them down to your ankles before finally undoing his own. 

The sight of his cock, long and hard and dripping with pre-cum as it sprung free from his boxers drove you up the fucking wall.

“I’m gonna fuck you until you can’t breathe,” he smiled, “gonna fuck you so hard I’m gonna have to drag you back home by your ankles.” 

The weight of his body on top of you, his heavy breathing in your ear, the way he bit at the exposed skin on your neck, all of it combined had you soaking wet for him in seconds. He found out soon enough because his metal fingers found your folds seconds after your pants were around your ankles. He rubbed your clit in slow motions, drawing a moan so delicious from your mouth he wanted to cum then and there. 

“Gonna get you ready for my cock now. You’ll take it like a good girl.” 

A gasp left your mouth when three of his fingers plunged inside of your already soaking pussy. He didn’t waste any time, pumping into you at a fast speed until your pussy was sopping wet.

“So fucking wet,” he smirked, “every. Damn. Time.” 

His fingers left you far too soon. You whined, the need for him to fill you up rising with each passing second. He licked his fingers, savoring the sweet flavor of your slick on his taste buds.

“You’re gonna be on top,” he said, “get on my fucking dick and don’t get off until you make me cum.” 

You nodded quickly, wincing when he squeezed your wrists before letting you go. He sank down on the soil, grabbing you under your arms and hoisting you on top of him with a hard yank. 

You lowered yourself down on him, inhaling sharply at the sensation of his dick stretching your pussy. You didn’t think you’d ever get used to his size. His hands gripped your ass, his metal hand and his flesh one offering a delicious contrast that sent sparks flying before your eyes. Then, you began to ride him, slow at first, pushing down on him until he bottomed out inside you. He hit your most sensitive spot, nearly sending your senses into overdrive.

With a wicked grin on your flawless face, you reached behind you. You dug your finger into the stab wound on his calf, causing his eyes to screw shut and a loud groan to spill from his lips.

“You like that, don’t you?” You asked, pressing harder into the wound you’d created moments before. 

He reached behind him, pulling the gun from behind his back. He pushed it into your side, nudging for you to move faster. You complied instantly, picking up the pace on top of him.

You nearly came when he pressed the cold metal against your clit, using the barrel of the gun to rub aggravated circles against the sensitive bud. 

“Good girl,” he panted, “make yourself cum on my cock.”

You gripped his shoulders, arching your back to create selfish pressure against your g-spot. You rocked your hips back and forth while he twisted and flicked your nipple. You kissed him again, eliciting a nasty moan into his mouth. 

You came hard, so fucking hard your vision blurred. He shoved the gun in your hand and forced his hands on your hips, pushing you faster up and down his dick until he came as well, cum shooting in spurts against your clenching walls.

You collapsed on top of him, panting and gasping for air while his head collided with the earth. You laid there for God knows how long, one of his hands rubbing circles on your back as the other caressed your cheek. Finally, he took off his jacket, hanging it over your shoulders to keep you warm. 

“Sorry I broke your nose,” you mumbled before kissing him gently, “you’re still handsome, though.” 

He smiled, “Be good as new in a week, baby. You went soft on me. I expected more of a struggle.”

You felt his hand travel under the jacket over the spot where he stabbed you and hissed in pain, “sorry bout that.”

“It’s okay,” you smiled softly, “be good as new tomorrow.” 

You may not have been a super soldier, but you healed fast. 

He offered his hand, placing the gun back in the waistband of his trousers.

“We have a long way back ahead of us,” he smirked, “You came a long way this time. No helicopter though, thank God. That was annoying as hell.” 

You nodded, biting your lip as you began to follow him through the trees. He walked with a limp, but he was fine. The serum never failed him.

“Hey, James?” You asked as you tried hard not to trip over the bed of leaves and twigs below your feet, “shoot me next time, will you?”

“Sure thing baby,” he said, kissing you softly on the temple, “happy anniversary.” 

Yeah, you sure as fuck were going to have fun chasing him next year. 

[dopescotlandwarrior]

Sinners & Saints - Chapter One

                     Special thanks to @statell​ for all your help.

Find on AO3

Chapter One

Galerie Charpentier is home to Sotheby’s Auction house in the center of the Parisian art world and host to almost eighty auctions per year. Art buyers worldwide watch for pieces to add to their collection and millions of dollars change hands as the gavel comes down on the final bids. A rare Rembrandt was up for sale today. One of three self-portraits done by the artist and the only one still in a private collection. The estimated price at auction is twenty-eight to thirty-five million dollars for the eight by twelve-inch painting. It will elevate any collection to new boasting heights and there is a lot of interest.

Jamie Fraser walked the halls of the auction house and checked in on his team trying to stay clear of buyers flocking into the building. He could care less about the art bought and sold today. He was here to catch a master art thief, his nemesis, who bested him at every turn. Jamie was number one in the world for profiling and catching the most accomplished thieves until he signed on to find Casper, the most prolific art thief in Europe. He was dubbed Casper because he came in and went out like a ghost, leaving nothing behind.

Jamie’s jaw clenched thinking of the many times he was closing in on his prey only to have him vanish with the prized art. This time was different, he could feel it. He was tipped off by a black-market snitch that told him the Rembrandt would be in play soon and that painting was being sold today. Casper had to be here, and Jamie would leave him crippled when he took him down. Payback for leading a merry chase for the past two years.

Jamie walked quickly toward the back entrance to verify the doors were locked. He was surprised to pass a large group of people in one of the auditoriums and glanced at the signboard, Doctor Claire Beauchamp, professor of fine arts, University of Chicago. By the size of the audience, she was quite popular. Jamie caught a glimpse of the striking professor in a body-hugging dress that she wore like a fashion model. Black rimmed glasses were perched on her nose above red lipstick and a pile of hair on top of her head that looked exquisitely messy. She pushed a coil of hair off her face and looked up at a huge screen, flipping slides with a remote control. One word came to Jamie’s mind; fascinating. His earpiece crackled and he spun around to head back to the front of the building.

Claire Beauchamp clicked for the next slide, clicked again, and again to no avail. She apologized to the audience and ripped her headset off to find some assistance. Five minutes later she was back to wrap up the lecture with the slides moving perfectly.

Jamie walked by the auditorium three more times as the professor worked her way through the questions, signed copies of her new book, and accepted the thanks of the Parisian art world. Jamie watched her, knowing the auction was underway and the clock was ticking on Casper’s entrance.

“Doctor Beauchamp, there’s a rumor you’re joining the team to catch Casper. Any truth to that?”

“Well, no. He has stolen pieces that I have a particular fondness for, and I would love to help catch him, but I have not been asked. It’s just a rumor.”

Claire shrugged her shoulders and smiled at the last of the people leaving. She stuffed her materials into her briefcase and took a deep cleansing breath. She had one more meeting and a plane to catch back to Chicago. She would give anything for a day to herself in Paris to wander around the Louvre and spend as much time as she wanted with the Masters. Maybe next time, she thought.

Claire emerged from the auditorium and made her way to the back entrance where she was allowed to park. She stopped abruptly and opened her case, smiling when she saw her headset tucked safely inside. She pulled the case up to secure the retaining strap and lowered her arm as the explosion blew her sideways, off her feet, and into a wall that was coming down. She could hear herself screaming until something heavy hit her on the head. Her screaming stopped.

Claire was vaguely aware she was laying in rubble from an explosion. The rubble was warm and had hands that held her upper arms, and a voice that kept asking if she was alright. She tried to lift her head and bumped it on something above her.

“What the bloody hell?”

Her hands were splayed on someone’s chest and she felt around deciding it was a male with a body like Arnold Schwarzenegger! Claire looked to her right and left seeing the tiny space they were pinned into and her heart pounded in her chest, feeling the claustrophobic fear that made elevators impossible.

“Jesus Christ, I have to get out of here, right now! Help me get out of here Mister, please!”

She felt the beefy arms wrap around her and hold her down making the panic even worse. Her wiggling made it hard to hear the man saying her name, getting more stern by the second. He finally held her tightly to him and warned her not to move.

“Doctor Beauchamp, Doctor Beauchamp, Claire! Stop moving! Something is holding the tonnage of walls, ceiling, and live wires above us. If you knock it loose it will kill us. Do you understand?”

Claire gripped his arms and panted from her attempt to escape. She listened to his voice calming her down and telling her to breathe with him. He was very encouraging and kept telling her they would be all right. He talked her down from a panic attack but kept his hands on her to be sure.

“May I call you Claire?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Alright, thank you. I need your help lass. Look around for something strong, like metal, a strong metal box, or something like that not connected to anything, free moving and about a foot tall. Do you see anything like that?”

“Why, for what?” Claire finally lifted her head a few inches and looked up at the man’s head, but it wasn’t there. A very large piece of the wall was suspended right above his throat and his head was on the other side of it.

“Oh my God, oh my God! Sweet Jesus, what are we going to do?” Her panic was rising again, and the arms came around her while the disembodied voice told her to breathe and keep her wits about her. It took several minutes but she finally gained control again and looked around for something strong with the limited space she had to lift her head.

“There are cinder blocks in the rubble, two of them are not touching anything. Will those work Mister?”

“Sorry lass, my name is Jamie, and those might hold this wall up long enough for me to scoot free of it. Can you move one, can you reach it?”

Claire could move the block slowly by stretching her arm until it hurt. Little by little she scooted the cinder block closer to the wall, muttering about a decapitated Arnold and she didn’t want to be alone. Jamie patiently calmed her reminding her to breathe deeply. He helped her push the block under the section of wall and patted her shoulder, thanking her for being so brave. Claire felt the man’s body scooting slowly, taking her with him an inch at a time until he was free of the would-be guillotine.

Jamie laid very still, trying to calm his racing heart. He could see what Claire could not and knew they were buried by at least twenty or thirty feet of debris. It would take hours for rescuers to find them if they ever did. Shafts of light were coming through, but those would disappear when the sun went down leaving them in complete darkness. Jamie felt a murderous rage boiling in his stomach.

“You fucking bastard,” was whispered through clenched teeth. “I will hunt you right into hell before I give up.”

“Who’s a bastard, who will you hunt, who’s going to hell?”

Claire was patting his arm trying to comfort the rage she felt in his tensed muscles. It scared her because she didn’t know this man. Jamie’s arms encircled her lightly for a few seconds.

“He’s called Casper and he’s a dead man walking because I’m gonna finish him when I find him.”

“Casper? The art thief did this?”

Claire got very quiet for a few minutes before asking, “who are you?”

“Jamie Fraser. I head up the task force trying to catch that piece of shit. Just so you know, we are getting out of here, one way or another, because I won’t let him win.”

He felt Claire shaking and heard her sniffling. He held her, feeling bad because he scared her. He lifted his head to look at her.

“I’m sorry lass, I didn’t mean to scare you. Look at me, Claire.”

Jamie wasn’t expecting the large whisky colored eyes and long black lashes wet from her tears. Her face stole his words for a moment, so he just looked at her. He wanted to touch her porcelain skin and feel the coils of curls that had fallen around her face and shoulders.

“I’m sorry Sassenach, rest now. It won’t be long.”

“Sassenach means crazy bitch, doesn’t it?”

Jamie laughed and Claire bounced on his stomach until she smiled too. “No. It means outsider. You’re a Brit, living in America, trapped in Paris, with a Scott,” he said laughing. He laid his head back down, “tell me about yourself, are you married? Any kids?”

“There is an offer on the table, but I haven’t decided yet. I like him fine but he’s a politician and I’m …not.”

“Tell me more. Why hesitate?”

Claire talked about the senator from Illinois who said he loved her and promised a life of excitement and purpose. Jamie listened to the story of two mismatched people and hoped she would choose herself over a man with plans to change everything about her. She couldn’t see that yet but to him, it was very clear.

“What about you when you’re not chasing a master criminal around the world?”

“I cannot say, it’s been too long. I asked a beautiful girl to marry me once and she said yes but she died in an automobile wreck before the wedding. I haven’t dated since then, about two years now.”

“I’m sorry for your loss Jamie, and if it hurts you, I’m sorry to bring it up.”

“I have never been to Chicago, what is it like?”

The conversation was interesting as they took turns asking questions about the other. Jamie was waiting for some sign, pounding, or yelling, that would indicate workers were close. He heard nothing so far and the light was fading in their rubble pocket. He prayed the night would not be terrifying to the woman on top of him.

“Can you sleep, Claire? I think you should try, it will make the time pass faster. Close your eyes and think about something you do at home for fun, breathe deep, that’s a good lass.”

Jamie could hear Claire’s breathing deepen into her slumber and he closed his eyes hoping to join her. He had a feeling it would be a long night.

Senator Randall was startled by a tap on his shoulder and a note passed to him by his aide. It said Doctor Beauchamp had not gotten off her plane from Paris and was not answering her phone. Frank nodded to the aide and gathered his papers into a case leaving the meeting as quietly as possible. He was calling Claire when the door closed behind him. No answer. Claire was reliable, punctual, predictable, and always called when her plans changed. He felt a nervous twitch in his stomach as his phone vibrated continuously with messages delayed while his phone was turned off. He read through the text messages quickly and was jogging to find his driver and get back to his office.

Claire’s secretary and friend had bombed his phone about an explosion at Sotheby’s, part of the building collapsed, and Claire had not boarded her plane. Frank was feeling a surge of anxiety that was quite unfamiliar and unwanted. He kept his life sterile and empty of drama so he could pursue what made him happy, successful, and energized. He barked at the driver to find a way out of the traffic and back to his office. He couldn’t wait. The laptop lid flipped open and Frank searched for news of the Sotheby bombing. It was all over the internet and the pictures of the damage almost stopped his heart. He started dialing for his aides, giving orders to find her, book a flight to Paris tonight, and get him an emergency number for who was in charge at the auction house. He walked briskly to his office followed by jogging aides handing him notes with flight times, and phone numbers.

“Hello”

“Thank God! Jesus yer hard to find Frank. Ye know whats happened at Sotheby’s. Claire didn’t check-in at the airport, she didn’t return her rental or check out of the hotel. I’m sorry Frank, she is unaccounted for and …”

Frank clicked off of the call when Geillis was mid-sentence. He couldn’t deal with her at the moment, and punched in the numbers to Sotheby’s but couldn’t get through. He assigned two aids to keep calling the emergency number until one of them got a person on the phone.

The sixty-inch television in his office was streaming news of the explosion and the missing Rembrandt painting that was discovered. The explosion was reported as a possible diversion so the thief could get away. One of the aides held her phone out.

“Senator Bradley, sir. He says you won’t answer your own phone and he needs to speak with you.”

“Hello, yes, no I can’t meet tonight, I’m flying to Paris, my girl…” Pausing to listen, “sorry Gary, I can’t, it’s an emergency. No, I won’t be voting tomorrow, I have an emergency, I have to …”

Senator Bradley could be heard from across the room making the aides press into the farthest point in the office to complete their tasks. Frank drew his arm back to throw the phone into the wall and someone shrieked and grabbed her phone away from him. It might cost her job, but this was her brand-new iPhone and no cranky senator was going to smash it to pieces. She headed for the door and disappeared.

“It’s the manager at Sotheby’s, sir. Please don’t break my phone.”

Frank dropped into his chair and reported the news of his missing fiancé, Doctor Claire Beauchamp from the University of Chicago. The manager wanted the name of her rental car company, hotel, and time of day she was last heard from. Frank gave him Geillis’s cell phone number adding she would be the point of contact. Tomorrow would be a ball-breaker and he needed someone attached to their phone in case any news came in.

Hours later, Frank laid in bed in the dark and thought about Claire. So many hours after the explosion and no word from her. He didn’t want to believe it but found little hope she was alive. He closed his eyes.

Claire was shifting her weight trying to get comfortable on the lumpiest mattress ever made. When she moved to her side Jamie’s eyes slammed opened and he groaned loudly from her hip crushing his balls. He lifted her hip and moved her over three inches letting his hands rest on her hip and leg. The dress she wore was knit and very soft. It had pulled up above her knee so Jamie pulled it back down.

He didn’t know Claire, and would never see her again once they were free, but he did not like hearing about her fiancé and that made him feel weird. He closed his eyes again.

“Jesus Christ! What is that?”

Jamie was yanked to the surface of consciousness by a loud and panicked voice coming from a wiggling woman trying to move up his body. His arms came around her and he shushed her, asking what was wrong.

“Something crawled up my leg and it had sharp claws, small sharp claws. I need to sit on your chest.”

Jamie grunted and held her still while he talked her down from another panic. He had worried about rats in the building being attracted to their smell. He told Claire to breathe with him while he stroked her hair in the pitch darkness. She had wiggled up toward his head and now her cheek was pressed against his, her mouth only inches from his. He could feel her relaxing and truly hoped for no more surprises tonight. He fell asleep with his arms around Claire.

Jamie opened his eyes when the noise of pounding pulled him back to consciousness. He felt Claire pressed against him, their faces touching, and the morning erection that threatened what little dignity he had left. He willed it away, quite unsuccessfully. The banging started again and he smiled to himself, it won’t be long before they are back on their feet, he thought. The pounding gave way to ripping metal and the distinct sound of a backhoe.

Claire moaned and moved to her stomach, rolling her face so her mouth was smashed against Jamie’s. He didn’t want to breathe for fear she would wake up and take her lips away. The noise from moving heavy debris got louder and the light from the new day flooded their pocket. Claire opened her eyes and screamed, pushing away from Jamie and hitting her head hard.

“What the bloody hell!”

“I’ll have you know madam that you accosted me just now, taking advantage of my inability to move and get away. This assault comes after you nearly strangled me getting away from a mouse.”

Claire rubbed her head and looked at the most beautiful face she had ever seen on a man. He could be a movie star with looks like that, she thought. Jamie was trying to look indignant but started to chuckle when her mouth turned into a smile. She looked adorable with a mass of curls pouring over her face as she felt for a bump on her head.

“Do you need me to rub it for you?”

The laugh that followed was genuine, feminine, and he loved hearing it.

“I’ll let you know if I want you to rub it.”

She laid her head on his chest and listened to the cavalry above them. “Sounds like they are making progress Jamie. I think you will soon be free of me.”

“Let’s hope it’s before I die of dehydration. I have never felt thirst like this in my life.”

With nothing to do but wait for the rescuers, they dozed and tried not to move too much. Through the early morning, the efforts above them intensified. The crew boss called a halt to the noise so they could get a radar fix on the heartbeats again. The radar technician moved his finger in a circle above their location and the infrared tech nodded his agreement. The noise continued.

“Jamie?”

“Yes, Sassenach.”

“What is the first thing you want to do when we’re rescued?”

“Drink like an elephant.”

“How is that?”

“Someone hands them a hose and they use their trunk to place it in their mouth. An hour or so later, the elephant pulls it out.”

“I’m quite sure you made that up but it’s still funny.”

“It’s God’s truth, I swear. Next, I will jump into the hotel pool until my body temperature comes back to normal. You laying on me is like a giant quilt heating me through for the last twenty hours or so. What about you Sassenach?”

“I’m down for the elephant thing, and a bubble bath, while I pray there are no flights to Chicago today. I want to lose myself in the Louvre.”

“Your list is impressive but surely a phone call to the senator will be done first, even before you put the hose in your mouth?”

Claire was giggling at Jamie’s charm, “of course, the senator, and then the hose.”

“Your dress is so soft, I woke up petting it like a rabbit in the middle of the night.” Jamie ran his hands down her back for effect and then instantly dropped them to his sides while Claire laughed. He just wanted to make her laugh until they took her away from him forever.

“Don’t move Sassenach!”

“Why? Is something crawling on me?”

Jamie grunted when her knee made contact with his balls as she twisted to look for a bug, or worse.

“No, it’s a phone call is all.”

Jamie reached up and pulled a phone to his ear. He spoke to the rescue worker and described how they were trapped. The phone was then pulled upward through the remaining debris until it was out of sight.

“Wow, how do they know exactly where we are?”

Jamie watched her childlike wonder and smiled at her until the dangling section of wall that had been directly above his throat dropped onto the cinder block making a deafening noise. Claire screamed and held onto Jamie tightly. She buried her face in his chest and cried until he could calm her down again. Claire felt his hand stroking her hair, and his arm around her waist. It was so foreign to be held this way and she didn’t want it to stop but could not force more tears, so he let her go. Jamie smiled encouragingly at her and pointed to the crushed cinder block.

“You see, you saved my life. That means you’re responsible for me forever.”

“Wait. If I saved you, that means you owe me a life, I think.”

“Anybody’s life?”

“I’m not quite sure about that. Maybe it’s like a debt that is paid by saving my life.”

Jamie took a chance and twisted his body and hers until they were lying side by side looking at the other.

“I don’t imagine a professor of fine arts and future first lady of the United States finds her life in peril much. But if you did, I will be the first one there Claire.”

She looked so innocent and beautiful looking at him. He seized her mouth and gorged himself on the beautiful professor. She turned her head for better access to his lips and he felt the exhilaration of her interest, however brief it would be. Aside from inhalation, the kiss continued until a large section that had them pinned was ripped away.

Claire sat up smiling at the men that surrounded them about ten feet up. She waved and stretched her back. A harness was lowered, held still by the men until she was safely in it. She pulled her briefcase strap over her head and was lifted through the debris to safety. Jamie watched her legs until she was pulled from his view.

Jamie looked up at the men, “any of the art stolen yesterday?”

“One small painting is all,” said with a heavy accent.

His stomach suddenly felt like a rock grinder. He asked the man, “quelle peinture?” The man shrugged his shoulders and looked around at the other workers until someone yelled “Rembrandt”. The sling was lowered again and Jamie was tempted to wrap it around his neck, but then Casper would win. He buckled himself into the harness.

Claire was loaded into an ambulance and whisked off to the nearest hospital. She gripped her briefcase and tried to calm her sense of shock at being thrust back into normality and away from Jamie. The EMT bent the straw top of a bottle of water and placed it in her mouth. She pulled the cool water into her mouth and thought about the elephants.

Claire was released by nine in the morning and now sat on her hotel bed with the phone in her hand.

“Sweet heavens, I am glad to talk to ye Claire, I haven’t slept a wink!”

“You are such a good friend Geillis. I tried to call Frank but his phone is off. Is he on his way to Paris?”

“No, he tried to leave last night but there’s an important vote today, it couldn’t be missed. What do ye need me to do? I already checked flights and they are booked today and tomorrow, even first class. I booked ye on United, leaving Paris at ten in the morning on Friday. All your appointments are canceled because ye were missin from a building that was bombed and I dinna ken if you were dead or alive.”

Geillis sobbed through the last part of the sentence and continued to cry until Claire calmed her down.

“I have quite the war story from the experience. I spent almost twenty-four hours laying on top of a giant Scot with a gorgeous face and bulging muscles.”

Claire giggled at Geillis’s reaction, knowing her friend would find that part of the tragedy delicious. After the call, Claire pulled her filthy clothes off and dropped them in the wastebasket. Flipping the security bar on the door meant she would be undisturbed while she scrubbed the dirt away. Sinking into the hot fragrant bubbles, she exhaled and thought about the rest of her day. She would meet with her client later and conclude their business and then tomorrow was all for her. The silver-lining as it were.

The exquisite bed in Claire’s room was so expansive one might miss the 8x12 inch Rembrandt in the center. Soon it would be handed over to the client in exchange for a deed to an Italian property valued at three million dollars. All in a day’s work.